Dear Padfoot
by MelodyMoonchild
Summary: This is a love story that reaches to death and beyond, because that is how far Remus was willing to go for Sirius. This is a love story, for those who deserve it, for those who didn't get what they deserved while they were alive.
1. Chapter 1

**Please note that the world of Harry Potter belongs to Rowling, therefore I take no credit in it or the characters I use for this fanfic.**

_21 April 1998_

Dear Padfoot,

I'm writing this because Nymph told me it might help. Help to ease my pain.

Padfoot, I miss you so much I think my heart might actually break any minute now. I know it's been almost two years since you.. Since you died, but I just can not get over you.

I have a son now, Teddy, I would've liked to name him Sirius, but Nymph wouldn't let me. I don't think I really love her, not like I loved you, like I will always love you. I love you so much I could die right now, just to be with you again, but I know you'd never forgive me if I left your godson to struggle alone. And besides, I've got a family now, a family who needs me.

God I really miss the feeling of running my fingers through your slightly tangled hair. I constantly tried to get you to brush your hair, but you were always too lazy, weren't you, Siri?

And I miss your eyes, how they always lit up when you got an idea, and the way you always looked at me. Like I was the most precious thing you had, like I was fragile like glass.

Moony misses you too. In fact, he misses his whole pack, even though I think he got over Wormtail pretty quickly. He misses you the most, and he always will. He howls for you every full moon, and is always completely crushed when there is no answer. You should see the damages he does to our body..

I'm actually considering sending this to The Grimmauld Place and have Paddy leave it on your bed. Paddy's my owl, he's got your grey eyes, and that same, piercing stare that makes your knees go wobbly when he's mad, and he's very smart too. You probably know where he got his name from, how could you not?

I sometimes visit Grimmauld Place, because someone's got to keep that place tidy. That house is full of so many memories for me, bad memories from when you were young and good memories from the times we actually spent in that house together. I must say, there are less good memories than bad memories, but that's simply because death snatched you away from me too early. We should have grown old together in that house.

That bloody portrait of your mother is a constant reminder about how much better our lives would have been if we would have been together, and sometimes I lie down on your bed just to think about you. Sometimes I can almost imagine you there with me, and then I open my eyes and I'm alone again.

It's equally heartbreaking every time.

I don't think I can write any more now, if I don't want to destroy this expensive parchment by crying on it...

Sirius, I'm seriously missing you.

Love, Rem.


	2. Chapter 2

**Please note that the world of Harry Potter belongs to Rowling, therefore I take no credit in it or the characters I use for this fanfic.**

_1 May 1998_

Dear Padfoot,

I know it is only a week since I wrote to you last time, well, wrote to you is probably the wrong term, since you're not actually reading this. But I felt my last letter helped me relieve my soul, it made me feel some kind of peace at mind. Since you left me here my mind has been a big mess, I haven't been able to think clearly since you died.

But now, now that I got to write to you, I felt like I got a bit of it out of my system, you know? Of course you do, because talking to me was what you did when you needed to get something out of your system, even though I think this ache will never go away, just like I will always be a werewolf, and just like you will always own my heart.

I'm afraid there are other things than your death I'm worrying about right now, Voldemort is stronger than ever and Harry is off being a hero, just like both his father and his godfather. If you were here right now I'm sure you would have said "Oh no Rem, you're the hero in this room", but you aren't, and I'm not a hero. Never have been, never will be. I'm a werewolf for Merlin's sake, and it's tough now that I don't have you here keeping my wolf at bay.

But back to Voldemort, rumor goes that Harry has soon found all the Horcruxes, so Neville has promised to contact the Order immediately if he turns up at Hogwarts. I've promised to go to Hogwarts if he appears, and so has Nymph. I know it means that in case of fight, I might die, and I'm sorry Siri! I really am, because I know you don't want me to risk my life, but for once in my life I want to feel like I'm actually doing something to help. I know being in the Order should give me that feeling, but it's not, because I don't think I'm actually doing anything. And I know I have a son, a son that deserves to grow up with his parents, but this is war. I want to be a part of creating a better world, a better world for him to grow up in.

In worst case, or best, we'll be reunited again. If not, I will make sure the first word Teddy speaks is "Sirius". Yes, I can see that now, how very nice it would be.

This is where you'd roll your eyes, if you were alive.

I quite miss that look you gave me when you thought my words where complete and utter nonsense.

I'm beginning to feel my words are becoming nonsense right now, but you loved my nonsense, right? So here comes a nonsense letter with important content, the important content being my love for you.

Yours eternally, Rem.


	3. Chapter 3

**Please note that the world of Harry Potter belongs to Rowling, therefore I take no credit in it or the characters I use for this fanfic.**

_2 May 1998_

_He's there now, Harry's at Hogwarts and we suspect Voldemort is about to attack the school. Nymph and I are going now, we're leaving Teddy with his grandmother. I'm writing you this just in case. To warn you. I love you, so much, and it's not like I'm planning on getting killed in the fight, but I kind of am hoping for it.. Damn you, Siri, for making me suicidal, for making me love you even though you've passed. Damn you for making me love you, until the very end._

_I've got to go now, they're waiting for me. And I've got your godson to look after._

_Love, Rem._

Lupin attached the letter to his owl Paddy's leg, opened the round window in his study and more or less threw him out. On his way to the door he suddenly stopped, turned and ran to his drawer, there he rummaged through a couple of drawers until he found what he was looking for.

It was a necklace with a pawprint and a full moon on it, made from platinum so he wouldn't burn himself. Sirius used to wear an exact replica of it, but they had both kept them tucked safely inside their shirts when they were out in public. It's not like they were ashamed of their relationship, but society at that time didn't respond well to homosexual wizards.

But this time Remus let the necklace lie on top of his shirt, this time he was proud of his past lover, and this time he really needed the comfort it gave him. It was his lucky-charm, what he always wore when he was about to do something he was afraid of, and this time he would die with it too, just like Sirius.

When he caught himself just standing there, thinking about Sirius when Hogwarts was under threat, he was deeply upset with himself. Hogwarts had been his home for eight years, seven of them when he himself was in school, and one when he was a teacher there. The love he felt for that old castle was, if possible, even greater than his love for Sirius.

The castle had been the one place on earth he had truly considered his home, it was a place where he knew he was constantly surrounded by friends. It was a place where he felt loved and respected, unlike at home, where his parents struggled to see the human underneath the wolf. And best of all, Hogwarts had been the place where he could snuggle up with his boyfriend at night without raising any suspicions or discomfort.

He really, really missed that warm body beside him at night. Even though he had Nymph there now, she didn't feel the same. She was soft in all the wrong places, unlike Sirius who had been very skinny, just like Remus himself. Remus liked to think of it as a canine thing.

When Remus had snapped out of his daze, he quickly ran down the stairs, taking two steps at a time, almost tumbling into a big pile at the bottom of the stairs because he temporarily lost his balance. As he stepped into the tiny livingroom he saw Nymphadora sitting on the ugly, floral sofa he had always hated. She looked rather impatient and irritated.

"I've called your name like a million times already, we need to GO NOW, or the battle will start without us!" she said angrily.

"Yes, I know, I'm sorry. Let's just apparate to the Hog's Head now and take the tunnel from there, we'll be there in no time. Surely they can't have started already, love?"

And so they did.


	4. Chapter 4

**Please note that the world of Harry Potter belongs to Rowling, therefore I take no credit in it or the characters I use for this fanfic.**

Remus couldn't recall much of the battle. He knew that he and Tonks had fought at different ends of the castle, and he remembered green flashes flying all around. He had seen almost as in slowmotion when a green flash had made it's way towards him, and he hadn't had the time to duck. In this moment he knew he'd meet his precious Siri again.

Then everything had gone black.

When he woke up after that he felt light at heart. He hadn't had the chance to open his eyes yet, but he felt like he was lying on a bed or something very bed-like.

Suddenly he was struck with a terrifying thought.

What if he hadn't in fact died?

What if he was at St. Mungos, severely injured but still alive?

He felt his heart beating faster from the fear.

That was when he felt fingers on his left hand. The touch was gentle, it was almost not a touch at all, more like a light stroke. His heart made a little jump in shock and maybe even a little in hope. The only one who had ever touched him like that was Sirius, and the fingertips brushing agains his hand felt alot like Sirius'. Remus decided the best thing to do was to open his eyes, and so he did.

Slowly he opened his right eye, and sure enough, there Sirius sat. Those grey eyes stared lovingly at his face, and there was a deep longing in those eyes. Something told Remus that Sirius had missed him as much as Remus had missed Sirius.

Remust felt a tear slowly started to make it's way down his chin and let out a sigh of relief as Sirius cupped his cheek with his hand and brushed the tear away with his thumb. Remus wanted to touch Sirius properly, to make sure it wasn't just a dream, so he sat up and intended to hug Sirius, but somehow he ended up just sitting there instead, gazing at his beloved who he thought he had lost forever. He wasn't sure what to do, he wasn't sure if it was okey to kiss him again, so as always, Sirius made the first move and drew him in for a soft kiss full of passion and longing, and it almost screamed of "I love you". And Remus wanted to scream "I love you too".

When Sirius withdrew after a long tongue-fight Remus finally noticed he was actually sitting in the red and gold decorated bedroom that had been Sirius' at the Grimmauld Place. This made a ton of questions appear in Remus' mind, but before he could ask anything he found himself glued to Sirius' mouth again, so he wasn't really complaining. After almost two years with death between them and twelve years when one of them was locked up in Azkaban, they really needed this. Remus had missed it as much as he would miss air in space.


	5. Chapter 5

**Please note that the world of Harry Potter belongs to Rowling, therefore I take no credit in it or the characters I use for this fanfic.**

Remus sat curled up in one end of the livingroom sofa in front of the fireplace with a cup of tea in his hands. He found this red velvet sofa much prettier and _much_ more comfortable than the one he'd had with Tonks, it just screamed of Sirius, which was always a good thing. And he found the company here much better than Tonks too. The fire and the tea was just what he needed, The Grimmauld Place could be really cold even though it was already spring, but on the other hand, Remus was always cold. It came hand in hand with being a skinny werewolf.

"Now that I've gotten my tea, would you care to explain to me where I am and how I ended up here?" Remus asked Sirius with a confused look on his face.

He'd wanted to ask Sirius from the moment he woke up, but found that talking at all is very difficult when your mouth is being played with by another mouth. So he decided he'd ask about it later, when they'd had their fun. And that seemed to take quite a while, almost five hours to be precise.

Sirius laughed a little and then flashed his signature lopsided grin that Remus had learned to love back in his schooldays.

"Well, you're dead, as you might have figured out. So am I. But we're not in heaven, and we're not in hell. I'm not really sure of it myself, but as far as I understand it we're like ghosts, but we can't be seen by living people. And if you don't know where you are, you must either be blind or have a terrible memory loss, you're in Grimmauld Place, my house, remember? And apparently, Death has a certain soft spot for the Black Family. So since I'm still a part of The Noble and Most Ancient House of Black, he was willing to negotiate with me."

Sirius winked and Remus' expression grew even more puzzled.

"What do you mean?" he said and looked at Sirius as if he would be able to figure this out if he just looked at Sirius closely enough. Even Remus' smart brain couldn't figure this out on it's own.

"I mean that I made a small request for Death that if you happened to pass by then he would send you here to me and send your bloody wife somewhere totally else, to heaven maybe. As long as she'd be far away from you, and you'd be living here with me. I'm sorry, but I wanted you all to myself, like I never got to have you when we were alive."

Sirius suddenly started staring out into space and looked a little sad.

"And he did it? Just like that? You didn't have to sell him your soul or anything?", he tried to sound humorous, but there was a trace of worry in his voice.

"Do you want some more tea?" Sirius asked, and it was quite clear he was trying to avoid the question.


	6. Chapter 6

Please note that the world of Harry Potter belongs to Rowling, therefore I take no credit in it or the characters I use for this fanfic.

Remus was rummaging through the cupboard where Sirius kept his food when a thought hit him.

He went off to try to find Sirius, which was easier said than done, and he had searched almost the whole house when he finally found him sitting on the wooden stairs leading down to the cellar.

"Siri, why are you sitting here?" he asked cautiosly, studying the tense lines of Sirius' face.

Sirius seemed to watch the dust, floating in the sunray that passed through the single, tiny little window high up on the wall.

"For many long periods that tiny window was my only connection to the world outside, my only hope of ever being happy and free," Sirius' voice was heavy, loaded with emotions, as he spoke.

"Oh," Remus gasped, "Oh Merlin, I'm so very sorry Siri, so this is where they kept you locked up," and then he moved to hold his soulmate.

"They told me I was a disgrace to our family and a danger to society, so they thought I was better off locked up in here". A tear had now forced it's way to Sirius' eye, and he was hopelessly trying to blink it away.

Soon the tears had started to fall heavily onto Remus' shoulder as he held Sirius, he rocked him slowly, hushed in a low, soothing voice and carefully ran his fingers over Sirius' slightly tangled hair.

"You're not a disgrace to your family, not to any family at all! In fact, you're the best thing that's ever happened to your family, you're the white sheep in a Black family," Remus said softly when he thought Sirius was calm enough to listen, "And that about you being a danger to society I can kind of agree on, you never know what happens when you're around", he added with a little chuckle.

Even Sirius smiled a little.

"Thankyou," he whispered, "Now then, why did you come searching for me?" he asked ad he tried to gain some of his pride again.


	7. Chapter 7

Please note that the world of Harry Potter belongs to Rowling, therefore I take no credit in it or the characters I use for this fanfic.

"I've missed having you around," Sirius admitted as he held a reading Remus possessively in his lap, "You know, just having you around, seeing you wander around the house, knowing you're there if I need you. Just having you in my everyday life. I know I usually complained about the fact that all you ever did was read, but after I died I would have done anything to see you read once more, my heart was aching so."

Remus looked up from the old, dusty book he was reading and tried to turn around in Sirius' lap, which made it very uncomfortable for Sirius. Still, he didn't let him go. Remus finally managed to somehow turn around and saw his own emotions reflected in Sirius' face.

Grief, hurting and pain. He knew that Sirius was telling the exact truth, nothing more, nothing less. Besides, he'd never lie to his lover.

"The books in this place must have been torture to you then," Remus sighed as he drowned in those warm, grey eyes.

"Not really. They gave me some comfort. I felt as if I was closer to you when I was reading. I used to sit like you often do, with your legs crossed. At first it was really uncomfortable, but now I can't stand sitting any other way", Remus sniggered a little at that, "I've probably read all your favourite books a hundered times already. Do you know how special you are, who got me to read? Of course you do, I tell you every day.."

Remus leaned in for a very loving kiss before he said "You're special too, you got me into mischief-making". There was a fire burning in Remus' eyes at the memories.

Sirius chuckled and placed a small kiss on Remus' nose.

"I read your letters too, guess if I was scared out of my mind when I was about to go to bed that night and found a letter lying on my bed? Merlin's beard.." Sirius shook his head at the memory. "Of course, when I saw it was from you I got very puzzled."

"WHAT? You've read my letters? But.. But how? How could they end up here?" Remus almost screamed.

Sirius held Remus tightly. "Don't ask me, this house works in mysterious ways."

Sirius looked puzzled, and again Remus found his Sirius had drifted off to a faraway place, staring out into space with a sad expression on his beautiful face.

"Siri?" Remus asked as he carefully turned around so that he had his back agains Sirius' chest again

"Yes dear?" Sirius asked as he nuzzled into Remus' light brown hair.

"Promise me you'll love me forever."

Sirius turned stiff behind Remus and didn't reply for a while, as if he was choosing his words carefully.

But when he did reply, his voice held the slightest hint of sorrow that only Remus could ever have noticed and which made Remus' brows furrow in confusion.

"I promise to love you until the day I die."

"That doesn't make sense," Remus huffed, "You're already dead."

"Then surely, it must mean that I will love you forever?" Sirius said and held Remus just a little bit tighter.


	8. Chapter 8

**Please note that the world of Harry Potter belongs to Rowling, therefore I take no credit in it or the characters I use for this fanfic.**

**And I felt the chapters should be longer, so here we go. Or try.. Or something.. And any reviews are happily accepted, especially if there's anything constructive in them.**

After that emotional talk on the sofa, Remus decided it was time for dinner, so he started rummaging through the kitchen cupboard again on a quest to find something he could cook (Remus was actually very good at cooking, something Sirius always complained about because apparently, it made him fat), and that was when his thought came back to him. He noticed there wasn't very much food left in the cupboard, so he went to find Sirius.

He found Sirius in crouched over his desk in his study, reading a book. Remus gasped when he saw what book it was, Sirius was reading nothing less than _Hogwarts: A History_.

"You still have that book?" Remus eyes were wide with surprise. He thought Sirius had destroyed all his school books after they left Hogwarts.

"Yeah, I wanted to save a piece of Hogwarts. Hogwarts was my sanctuary from what was happening at home, it's the only place where I've ever felt completely happy." Sirius dragged Remus closer and stroked Remus' waist lovingly. "This is the only thing I've got left of Hogwarts, if you don't count the memories and the toilet seat I hide in my closet." Sirius sniggered at the memory of an old prank involving explosives and Hogwarts toilets.

"Eww, you still have that toilet seat? I thought you were just joking when you said you'd take it home with you.. And about your feelings towards Hogwarts, that's pretty much what I feel too, you know, with the whole 'My-parents-are-failing-to-see-the-human-in-me' thing." Remus said and sighed at the thought.

"You know I did anything to annoy my parents at that time, and you can never just take for granted that I'm not always serious like that, pretty much of the time I actually am serious, I'm serious Sirius, remember?" Sirius said and winked.

"Oh stop it, you're a babbling old fool!" Remus chuckled and prodded Sirius on the shoulder.

"Hey! Who are you calling old?" Sirius grabbed for his quill and started to tickle Remus at his wrists, where his skin was very delicate and where Sirius always loved to tickle him. This made Remus scream like a girl as he ran out of the study to try and hide from Sirius, and Sirus went after him in a hurry. So they ran around the house in a wild game of tag where Remus was the pray, knocking down vases and making the curtain over Sirius' mother's paiting fall off, leaving her screaming about mudbloods and werewolves, as they ran through the house, but having way too much fun to care.

The chase came to an end on Sirius' (and now Remus' too) bed, where Sirius tickled Remus silly, and after he had given up and admitted that Sirius wasn't in fact very old at all, they both lay panting on the bed, still giggling a little. That was when Remus remembered why he had wanted to talk to Sirius in the first place, so he decided to spit it out immediately this time, before he was interrupted again.

"Sirius, the food is almost out in the kitchen cupboard. How do we get more food?" he asked with a voice filled with wonder.

"I told you this house works in mysterious ways. Here, let me show you!" Sirius said as he reached out his hand for Remus to take, laughing at the confused look on Remus' face. Remus, indeed, seemed a little uncertain about whether it was safe to follow Sirius or not.

His insecurity lead to the fact that Sirius had to drag him along, and so he dragged him through all the corridors and long, winding stairs down to the kitchen. For the Grimmauld Place was indeed a very large house.

In the kitchen Sirius made a move towards the cupboard door, but seemed to change his mind right before his fingers touched the golden handle. Instead he stood in front of the door, and Remus jumped a little as he suddenly spoke with a strong voice.

"I, Sirius Black, master of this house, wants this cupboard to be filled with delicacies of different kinds. And I also want the cupboard to contain ingredients for a nice meal of lasagna that my lover, Remus Lupin, will cook for us. Understood?"

Remus caught himself waiting for the house to answer, and he wanted to put a big note on his forehead where it said "Stupid", for actually believing a house could answer you.

But there was, however, a low thud of the groceries landing in the cupboard.

And surely enough, as Sirius opened the door and gestured for Remus to take a look inside, the cupboard was filled to the brim with groceries.

Sirius observed as Remus' face went from disbelief to shock to something resembling joy.

Remus turned around with a wide grin, "How? How did this happen?"

Sirius sighed and gave Remus a disappointed look. "Haven't I told you a million times already that I don't know how it works? I figured it out a couple of days after I got here when I found myself wishing I had an extra pillow in my bed."

"Well, I'm surprised this place isn't filled to the brim with motorbikes then," Remus said in a fake mocking voice.

"Ha ha, very funny Rem. Don't you think I've tried? But this house seems to have some limitations, one of them being that it's totally impossible to get any muggle technology in here at all, even watches don't work here. It has to have something to do with my bloody mother and her stupid muggle hate. That was one of the reasons I started reading too, because I couldn't get a bloody television in here" Sirius said and pouted.

All of a sudden Remus felt very sorry for his lover, and attempted to cheer him up a little. "But you've got magic, you don't need things like that. Now cheer up. And I think the freezing spell in that cupboard is starting to fade." Remus pointed vaguely at the cupboard.

"See? This would never have happened with a muggle refrigerator!" Sirius seemed to be on the verge of a breakdown of frustration towards the anti-muggle mother of his.

"Well, actually, they do break you know.. But I think what you need now is a nice little nap before dinner. I'll stay here and cook. I'll fix the cupboard too," he said, and with a wave of his wand he updated the freezing spell on the cupboard, and then he quickly but gently shooed Sirius out of the kitchen.

When dinner was ready, Remus set the table and lit two candles that he placed in the middle of the table. Then he dimmed the lights in the dining room and made his way to their bedroom to wake Sirius up.

At first Remus didn't want to wake Sirius up, because he looked so peaceful where he lay curled up under a red blanket. A stray lock fell over his right eye, and Remus leaned in to carefully brush it away. As Sirius felt the gentle touch he smiled in his sleep and murmurred something that sounded like 'o njs to hev you hr' and Remus whispered in Sirius' ear, "It's very nice to be here too". And to that, Sirius woke up. Remus immediately embraced Sirius with a hug and softly whispered "Dinner's ready", and Sirius slowly, and very reluctantly got out of the bed and followed Remus down to the dining room.

When Sirius saw the romantic setting in the dining room he stopped, his eyes almost watering and his mouth hanging open from the beauty of it. And from the beauty of Remus, because in that moment, in that lighting, Remus looked like an ancient, Greek god. He had to say it, he couldn't stop himself. "Rem, you look like Greek god right now, and I swear, I'm confused out of my mind about how a man like me could ever get a man like you.."

"Siri, dear Siri, don't you know? The good girls always fall for the bad boys." Remus winked and shot Sirius a quick smile before he gestured for Sirius to sit down, he even pulled out Sirius' chair for him.

"This feels weird.. It feels like I should be the one preparing this romantic dinner, and I should be the one pulling out your chair.. Please tell me you haven't become dominant in bed too?" Sirius looked mildly horrified at the thought.

"Well, you couldn't be the one preparing the meal, you would just set fire to everything.. But I'd trust you with the setting and the pulling-out-my chair part. And I don't know, maybe we should find out later?" Remus wiggled his eyebrow, and even he had to admit that it felt weird, it actually felt like a very Sirius thing to do, almost as if Sirius had taken patent on the eyebrow wiggle.

But now it was Remus doing it, and if he was doing it he was going to do it good.

As soon as they both had sat down, a tray of lasagna floated through the air in the dining room, hovered above Sirius' plate, cut out the amount of lasagna it knew Sirius would want and then the lasagna lowered itself onto Sirius' plate. Then it repeated the process on Remus' plate, even though Remus' piece was alot smaller than Sirius' piece.

The lasagna turned out to be perfectly cooked, and after they had finished the plates vanished and were replaced by smaller plates with heart-shaped chocolate cupcakes on them. Sirius looked stunned, "I don't think I can eat any more right now, I'm very full from the lasagna. But just because it look really delicious, I'll eat it." Sirius said.

Then Remus took up his fork, placed a piece of his cupcake on it, reached over the table and held the fork right before Sirius' mouth. Sirius took the fork into his mouth and tasted the delicious cupcake, it even smelled of chocolate. His eyes fluttered closed as he held the chocolate in his mouth. But then his eyes widened in horror and he almost choked on the cupcake, "REMUS! REMUS YOU'RE ON FIRE! MERLIN'S BEARD!", then Sirius quickly reached for his wand and yelled "AGUAMENTI" before any serious harm had been done to Remus' delicate skin. Remus had hardly even had the time to register the fire before it was put out by Sirius, his knight in shining armour, and balance was restored again.

As they were brushing their teeth that evening, after Sirius had insisted on carrying Remus up the many stairs to the bedroom, Remus had a thought. A thought that terrified him.

With a trembling voice he looked at Sirius in the mirror and said, "Siri.. Does it hurt you that I moved on and got a son?"

Sirius' eyes instantly darted up to meet Remus' amber eyes in the mirror. Sirius looked maybe a little bit shocked by the question and didn't answer for a while. Instead, he was drumming his fingers against the red and gold sink (something Remus was sure was Sirius' doing, his way of being a rebel).

Finally Sirius turned towards Remus with the tiniest, slightly crooked smile, "No, like you said, you didn't really love her. You just wanted to feel something again. And regarding your son, I would've been glad to meet him. I'm sure he must look or act just like you", and then Sirius left it to that. It was clear to Remus that this discussion was over, and he respected that.

They continued to brush their teeth in silence, and every time one moved forward to spit, the other one withdrew, as in a gracious dance. However, the first evening they spent together again had been anything but a gracious dance, since they weren't completely used to being together again, and Remus had by mistake spat in Sirius' hair, so that his lovely black locks had become white all over. Remus had gone pale and horrified, but Sirius had laughed so much that he had had to sit down on the toilet seat, and it had taken him about half an hour before he was calm enough to get himself cleaned up and to assure Remus that no harm had been done and that he should let the blood back into his face again.

Sirius finished brushing his teeth before Remus did, so he leaned back against the black tile wall and studied Remus in the ornate mirror with a slightly evil, but still loving smirk on his face. Remus quickly acknowledged the smirk, "What are you smirking at, Padfoot?".

"Oh, I'm just loving the way you slide that toothbrush in and out of your mouth like that", the sparkle in Sirius' eyes was there, and Remus nearly choked on his toothbrush.


	9. Chapter 9

**Please note that the world of Harry Potter belongs to Rowling, therefore I take no credit in it or the characters I use for this fanfic.**

**Note: There acually was a man named Frederick Black Sr., I noticed him when I googled the name. Apparently he died last year, he was a police officer, therefore I let him be an Auror in my story. For some reason this made me feel really sad..**

Remus woke up that night. The moon was tugging at his bones, asking him to remember who he was. _What _he was. He slid out of bed, careful not to wake the sleeping Sirius, and softly walked across the floor, stepping over the floorboards he instinctively knew would creak.

As he walked the dark corridors lined with portraits of sleeping people, he let a small sob escape him, and he could only think of one place to go too; the library. Somehow, he had always felt safe when he was surrounded by books, like they at least couldn't hurt him (unless someone, like James Potter for example, threw them at him), and he liked the feeling of knowing you're surrounded by happy stories about happy people, like there was at least some happiness in the world. And besides, there is nothing better than a good book to take your mind off horrible things, that was the motto Remus pretty much lived by.

As he closed the door behind him to the library Sirius had let appear when he missed Remus the most, Remus leaned his back against the door slowly sliding down the ebony surface until he was seated on the floor in a big tangle of arms and legs, now shaking heavily from the muffled sobs. He didn't want to believe it, he didn't want it to be true. He had felt the tugging a few nights ago, but he thought he was just delirious from his recent activities with Sirius.

But this time he was absolutely sure it was the moon, forcing him to remember the countless times he'd already transformed, and all the worst times when James was dead, Sirius was in prison and Peter was gone, when he'd been just a lonely werewolf who missed his pack, who thought it was his fault they had disappeared and therefore had punished himself severely. He didn't want to think about it, but the moon gave him no choice. He didn't want to think about the brutality of it all, and he certainly didn't want to think about the fact that it would happen again.

After a while Remus moved to the window sill and glared up at the moon. It just seemed so unfair. Why couldn't he get to be normal again, after a lifetime of suffering? Why did the stupid curse have to follow him even after he had died? And why did it have to ruin his perfect existance with Sirius? Why couldn't the wolf just leave him alone? Those where the thoughts rushing through his mind when he looked up on the orb he had once loved watching, once upon a time when he was a little child, blissfully unaware of the cruelty of the real world.

Remus felt the wolf stir deep inside him at the sight of the moon, the moon that was about a week from full. He could almost hear it howling in the back of his mind. He felt stupid for somehow believing that even if the wolf was still there, he wouldn't have to transform anymore. He had wanted to believe it so much, that finally he had believed it, even though there was proof against him. Because he felt the wolf, he felt it in every move he made, in every breath he took and in every single word he spoke. The wolf was a part of him as much as he was a part of the wolf, and however much it pained him to admit it, a part he would greatly miss if he lost it. But still, it was so terribly, utterly unfair that he would have to live with this curse even after his life had ended!

In a sudden fit of anger, Remus pulled out a random book from the nearest bookcase and threw it at the opposite wall, so hard that a very old painting of Frederick Black Sr. almost fell off the wall, and the poor old man woke up with a loud cry and started shouting offensive insults at Remus, who barely even noticed the man. The book had left a big hole in the emerald green wallpaper, and Remus got one more reminder of his werewolf strength.

This act of anger showed much about Remus' frustration, because he never  got aggressive. Depressed, yes, but never aggressive. Such was Remus' nature, but this just felt like more than he could handle. Right now he just wanted Sirius to hold him, but he couldn't bring himself to put any more weight on Sirius' already so hunched shoulders. He knew his lover had carried so many burdens when he was alive, and he knew that his Sirius was probably the strongest man he had ever known.

After a while of silent thinking and reflecting over life's cruelty, when the sun almost peeked above the horizon, Remus slowly started to make his way towards the bedroom again. The corridors were now flooded with a light pink light from the rising sun, and the red paint lookeed even brighter. He walked slowly through the halls and dragged his fingertips along the walls. Deep inside the walls he could feel the pure evil that had once lived here, but it was overshadowed by the light and energy of Sirius' spirit. Sirius was truly the master of this house, nobody could deny that, Remus thought to himself. When he got back to bed he carefully slid in next to Sirius, who stirred a little and put his arm around Remus, and Remus found that that was all the comfort he needed to finally drift off to a heavy sleep again.

When he woke up he found he was alone in the bedroom, and he felt a hint of Sirius' favourite perfume hanging in the air. He made his way to the window and peeked behind the curtains, only to be blinded by the striking sunlight bashing in. Remus grunted and started to follow Sirius' scent.

After a while of searching, Remus had grown very confused. It appeared Sirius had walked around the house without entering any rooms, just goin around in a peculiar pattern, until finally, the trace ended at the kitchen door. And surely enough, when Remus entered the kitchen, Sirius was sitting there dressed in a red silk robe that looked increadibly expensive, eating a piece of toast with melted jelly on it. The crumbs fell on his otherwise so neat robe when he chewed, but he didn't seem to care.

"What way did you take to the kitchen?" Sirius asked in a voice that almost managed to sound nonchalant.

"Your scent lead me in circles and loops and crosses and Merlin only knows what. What exactly have you been doing this morning? Remus demanded.

"Testing my theory," he answered simply.

"Testing your theory? What teory? "

"My theory, that you've still got the wolf inside of you. I'm sure of that now. Don't you think I noticed you were missing for several hours last night?" this time Sirius almost glared at Remus. "What exactly did you do? I want to know. And I know you're upset, so there's no point in lying to me. That poor Frederick chap down in the library said you almost made his painting fall from the wall last night."

"I.. I'm sorry.. It's just.. I woke up and I felt the moon tugging at my bones. And I got so upset because I thought... I thought that I had become normal when I died, even though I deep inside knew it wasn't true, because I could feel the wolf all along. But it's just so unfair.. So unfair.." Remus had to sit down on a chair, because he wasn't too sure his legs could hold him up anymore. He buried his face in his hands, leaning on the table. Saying these words to his soulmate felt like the last confession, the last step of finally making them true. He was still a werewolf. He would still have to go through the excruciating transformations once a month. But he also had Padfoot there to help him.

"Remus.. Remus dear, it's okay, it's so very okay to be upset." Sirius moved to hold Remus comfortingly, "I agree, it's very unfair that you should have to still live with this curse. You deserve so much better, you deserve the best this life could ever give you. You're more than just a werewolf, you're _human, _and don't you ever forget that! Promise me!" Sirius also sounded very upset.

"I.. I promise. Now could I please have some food? I'm starving."

Sirius chuckled, "Of course dear," then he pecked a kiss on Remus' cheek and moved to make Remus some toast, the only thing he could actually manage without setting anything on fire.

The fire in the owen crackled, and Remus found the warmth and the sound very soothing, so when he got his toast, he was completely relaxed again. How could he ever thank this man enough?

After breakfast Remus went to the library to apologize to Frederick Black Sr. for almost knocking his painting off the wall the night before. As he entered the library, several of the portraits in the room started glaring at him. It was obvious Frederick hadn't kept the night's events to himself. Remus decided there was no use in delaying the apology further, so he walked directly up to Frederick's painting.

As he stood in front of the painting, Frederick tried his best not to make any signs of noticing Remus, until Remus cleared his throat whereupon Frederick jumped a little and stared down at Remus with a very firm expression on his face. He fingered a little with his ruffled sleeves, before he finally spoke with an equally firm voice, "Yes?".

"I want to apologize for almost making your painting fall down from the wall last night, it wasn't my intention to hurt you in any way," somehow Remus even managed to sound calm as he spoke.

Frederick seemed to think for a while, before he spoke again, "Apology accepted. Just don't try to knock me down any more times, please." and then he turned and started walking out of his frame.

Remus didn't know why, but before Frederick had disappeared completely, he suddenly yelled "WAIT!"

Frederick's surprised face reappeared on the edge of the painting. "Yes?"

"I.. I'd like to get to know you, sir. You seem like one of the better Blacks, and I would very much like to know another one of Sirius' ancestors." Remus said even though he hadn't really planned to. But it was true, there was something special with this man, he could feel it.

"Well if you'd like to get to know me, I'll tell you. But just because there isn't very much else going on when you're a painting, so even talking to a loopy person like you seems interesting. I was an Auror, back in the days. I loved my work, and I was a very good Auror too. I had a wife and two children, we were happy. But once a month some.. Problems arose. I.." Frederick seemed to doubt whether he should tell Remus this or if he shouldn't, "I'm a werewolf. "

At that moment, Remus felt like time had stopped. Frederick's words were still ringing in his ears an hour later when he had finished his talk with Frederick and went down to one of their living rooms, the largest of them, and found Sirius sitting in the sofa reading a book. He looked very comfortable in that sofa, way too comfortable, so Remus decided to place himself in Sirius' lap to make it a little bit more uncomfortable. And Sirius' lap was the most comfortable place on earth.

"Siri, do you know that Frederick was a werewolf?" Remus asked, as if it was nothing special about that, like he was talking about the weather.

"Yes, infact I do. So you've been talking to him? I was hoping you'd do that. You seem much more cheerful now." Sirius gave Remus a vague smile and tucked some of Remus' hair behind his ear. Then his hand moved down to intertwine with Remus', and then they sat like that for a couple of hours, Sirius reading his book and Remus just thinking.

After all, Sirius' lap was the best place for thinking.


	10. Chapter 10

**Please note that the world of Harry Potter belongs to Rowling, therefore I take no credit in it or the characters I use for this fanfic.**

**And the Luck-thing was originally not my idea, it was a friend of mine who came up with it, but I decided it was too good to be forgotten.**

A few days later Sirius and Remus were eating dinner, roasted turkey with gingerfries, something Remus had found in a muggle cookbook in their kitchen, when suddenly a wide grin spread on Sirius' face and his eyes lit up with an internal flame. Remus knew that face meant trouble.

"What is it this time? Do you want to blow up any more toilets?" Remus asked.

Sirius chuckled and his eyes grew even more eager, "Remus dear, I don't think I've ever introduced you to my mother, have I? How very rude of me."

Remus looked puzzled, "No you haven't, she's dead, you couldn't possibly," then Remus froze with a bite of turkey halfway to his mouth as realization hit him. "Oh no! Not that! Don't you dare! I will not.. I refuse to.. I will not speak to that awful portrait of your mother!"

"Remus love, now you're the one being rude. I insist you meet my mother this very instance," and to those words Sirius drew his wand an put a levitation spell on Remus, making him levitate out of the room and towards the hallways, while he was trying to order Sirius to put him down without any luck.

As they stood in front of the painting, Remus knew there was no point in trying to escape, since Sirius was so determined about this idea. But the very second before Sirius fingers grasped around the curtain hanging over the painting, he looked a little doubtful. But that second was soon over, and the curtain was soon withdrawn.

As soon as the curtain fell, Walburga Black started screaming, "YOU'RE A STAIN OF DISHONOUR TO THIS FAMILY, YOU FILTHY BLOOD TRAITOR. AND HOW DARE YOU BRING THAT WEREWOLF INTO MY HOUSE"

Sirius made a small bow before he spoke, "Hello mother, nice to see you too. And need I remind you that this is my house now, which in fact, there already was a werewolf in before Remus arrived? Remember Frederick, mother? I'm sure you do, you used to admire his painting all day long while you were still alive," Sirius smirked a little at that.

"Frederick was an acceptable man who just happened to have had some bad luck in his life. He, on the other hand," Walburga threw a poisonous look at Remus, and Remus was glad looks couldn't kill, even if it very much felt like it.

Sirius seemed to puff up his chest at his mother's words, ready to defend his lover, "Remus is the most respectable man on this earth, he is smarter than any average Ravenclaw and he is certainly braver than you ever were, he would have had the guts to stand up to my father," Walburga tried to poision Sirius with her gaze at those words.

"Don't you dare drag your father into this!"

"Remus is also very beautiful and has the most wonderful eyes I've ever seen. He is my soulmate. Mother, I'm homosexual and in a relationship with Remus," Walburga went completely pale at Sirius' last words.

"YOU ARE NOT MY SON ANYMORE!" and then she disappeared out of her frame.

"Merlin.. Remus.. I don't think I have a last name anymore.. No, scratch that, I know I don't have a last name anymore.. Merlin's beard!" and then Sirius ran up the stairs and locked himself into one of the 13 bathrooms in the house.

Remus was left alone in the hall, very confused and very shocked.

After about an hours, Remus had finally convinced Sirius to come out of the bathroom. He knew the experience had upset Sirius deeply, because nothing else could have gotten the Great Sirius no-longer-Black to hide away in a bathroom, and if he looked closely, he could even see traces of tears on Sirius' face.

Remus had carried Sirius up to their bed, supernatural strength was one of the better sides of being a werewolf, and placed Sirius carefully on the bed, placed a soft kiss onto Sirius' lips and sat down beside him, gently stroking his thumb over the back of Sirius' hand.

"I love you, I hope you do understand that I sacrificed my last name for you," Sirius finally said after a long silence.

"I'm still a bit confused, what do you mean 'your last name is gone'?"

"I mean that I'm not Sirius Black anymore, I'm just Sirius.. It's hard to explain," Sirius sighed.

"Oh, okay.. I always thought you hated your name, but you know.. I guess I'd feel upset and lost too if I suddenly lost my name.."

Sirius knew that Remus really meant what he said, that he truly understood, and he couldn't be any more thankful for that.

Several hours later Sirius was still lying on his back on the bed, staring up at the ceiling as if all his answers were there to find. Remus was curled up beside him with one leg wrapped around Sirius' thigh. Remus wasn't really sleeping, more like slumbering, and Sirius didn't actually want to wake him from his daze, but he felt he had to talk about it.

"I guess I need a new name now," he said and felt guilty when Remus snapped awake.

"Yes, you do need one, don't you. You can't be nameless," Remus mumbled, clearly reluctant to the quick awakening, "How about Luck?"

"What? Luck? I don't have any luck in anything, if that's what you mean.." Sirius looked quite confused at his boyfriend's babble.

Remus smiled a little at Sirius confusion and kissed him on his bottom lip before he explained. "I mean Luck as in the name Luck. You know, your old name and my name combined.. Lupin and Black, Luck," Remus suddenly blushed a little at the proposal.

Sirius sat up then and dragged Remus into his lap, where he held him tightly as he dipped his head into the dip between Remus' neck and shoulder. He breathed in the scent of Remus, the scent which smelled a little of dusty old books, but in a good way.

"Thankyou, that would be wonderful," he whispered into Remus' ear, right before he started nibbling at it, making Remus squirm in his lap.

Remus had noticed that Sirius had been staring up into the bedroom ceiling quite often lately, and that gave him an idea. He was going to replace the plain, boring white with something much more interesting. That's why he went to the library and prepared himself for dealing with the house.

Sirius had tried to tell the house a couple of times that Remus was it's master too, but just like Sirius, the house seemed to have a mind of it's own. That meant that sometimes Remus got what he wanted, and sometimes he got a bucket of water poured over his head, or his teapot filled with toads. Yes, the house behaved indeed very much like Sirius, at least they seemed to share the same love for mischief. "Like Sirius' pranks aren't enough," Remus muttered as he once again found the library door leading to the other end of the corridor rather than to the library.

"I, Remus Lupin, part owner of this house, commands you to let me into the library at once", and at those words a hole in the wooden floor beneath Remus' feet appeared, and he fell right through it, and landed in.. The library. "Ugh, well at least I got in," Remus shrugged as he checked his body for broken bones. When there seemed to be none, he spoke to the house again, "I now order you to get me a book about more complicated, non-evil spells that have anything with ceilings to do," and this time a very thick old book landed right on Remus head. "Would you please stop doing that? You are by far the worst house I've ever visited!" Remus grunted as he decided it would be safer to check the book back in the bedroom.

Remus had struggled with the spell for quite a while when he heard Sirius calling his name.

He quickly ran out of the bedroom and down the hall to the grand staircase, the one that was made of marble. "Yes?" he shouted down the stairs.

"Remus? Remus where have you been? I've been looking all over for you!" Sirius shouted back.

"Oh, I've been in the library, you know, reading.. Like I always do.." Remus shouted as he began walking down the stairs towards the sound of Sirius' voice.

"No you haven't, that was the first place I checked!" Sirius now sounded slightly frustrated.

"That's because I was curled up under a table and was too caught up in the book to want to be distracted," Remus was pretty good at coming up with lies quickly.

"Well what book were you reading?" Remus had now reached the source of Sirius' voice, which appeared to be on the eight floor platform, from which a hallway lead to the guestsuites, and he found Sirius staring at him with one eyebrow raised, daring him to slip with his lies.

And Remus knew that Sirius knew that he was lying, he just didn't want to give it up. And as long as Sirius was going to be surprised in the end, it was all worth a little lying.

"Vampirefeuds throught the ages by Magentha Roockborn," Remus managed to keep his voice flat, as if it was crystal clear that he had been reading that exact book. It was a good thing Remus knew practically every book in that library.

"Since when are you interested in vampires?" Sirius' eyebrow was now even more raised in a questioning expression.

"Since now," Remus said and kissed Sirius, and almost drowned in the smell of Sirius' perfume at the same time. "Now did you want anything, or can I go back to my reading please?" Remus managed not to gurgle, even though his knees felt worryingly wobbly.

"Oh, I just wanted to tell you that I'll be using your idea. And I'm now officially Sirius Luck," Sirius questioning face turned into a wide grin at the sentence.

"Congratulations dear, maybe I should change too?" Remus kissed Sirius again, a little deeper this time, sliding his tongue in to really deepen the kiss.

"I'd be really happy if you did" Sirius murmurred into Remus' mouth.

That night when they went to bed Remus stayed behind in the bathroom a while after Sirius had left, and was happy to hear a surprised gasp from the bedroom. He peeked his head out of the bathroom door and saw Sirius sitting on the bed, gazing up into the starry sky above him.

"Do you like it?" Remus smiled with his toothbrush sticking out to one side of his mouth.

"Like it? I love it.. How did you do this? Isn't this the.." Sirius started, before Remus broke him off.

".. enchantment used in the Great Hall at Hogwarts, yes it is," Remus looked extremely proud as he said this.

"But isn't that like bloody hard to do? I heard it took them years to figure it out at Hogwarts.."

"Well yes, but then again, I'm no ordinary Gryffindor, am I?" Remus raised an eyebrow and Sirius looked very proud of his boyfriend. Then Remus went to put his toothbrush back into it's place in the bathroom before he joined Sirius under the almost fullmoon over the bed.

Remus woke up in the middle of the night because the bed felt strangely wet, and when he thought about it there was something wet pouring over his head too. Shortly after Remus had awoken, Sirius woke with a loud scream.

"Remus, bloody hell! What is this? Why didn't you tell me I'd need an umbrella to get some sleep without being soked?" Sirius asked groggily.

Remus was horrified to notice that it was raining outside, and in fact, inside their bedroom too.

"Oh Merlin, I'm sorry Sirius.. I knew it was too good to be true, I knew there had to be something wrong with the spell.. I suggest we move to one of the guestrooms and clean this up tomorrow?"

"Ugh, sure, whatever gives me the right to sleep.." Sirius grunted.

And so they did.

Before Sirius awoke in the morning, Remus went back to their bedroom to dry up the big puddles of water in their bedroom, and then he started trixing with the enchanted ceiling.

After half an hour of trying, he figured out the problem and fixed it, whereupon he strolled down the stairs to wake Sirius up.

As he crawled into the bed in an emerald green guestsuite, he lightly shook Sirius' shoulder to wake him up. When Sirius woke up he saw Remus' eager face hovering a couple of inches above his, and Remus pecked a quick kiss on Sirius' mouth before he started explaining.

"It was the ceiling height that was the problem! The ceiling in the Great Hall is much higher than in the bedroom, and the enchantment was designed so that the rain would stop halfway down from the ceiling of the Great Hall, resulting in the fact that our whole bedroom got flooded. So I just had to adjust the measurements and now it should be fine," he explained really quickly.

"Uh, Rem dear, we haven't had tea yet and you've already gone about changing measurements? You're mental sometimes, do you know that? But in a good way, of course." the fire in Sirius' eyes was lit again as both he and Remus chuckled a little.


	11. Chapter 11

**Please note that the world of Harry Potter belongs to Rowling, therefore I take no credit in it or the characters I use for this fanfic.**

**Note from the Author: Please review and tell me what you think! Is there anything you don't like? Is Remus not smart enough? Well, the only way I'll be able to know is if you review, so please help a clueless author out here and ****review!**

**Thankyou!**

On the day of full moon Remus started feeling sick and terribly, utterly depressed, so he went to the only place he could think of except Sirius' lap that could ever make him feel better; the Grimmauld Place library.

As he stood and gazed out of one of the enormous window in the quiet library, he watched the dust twinkle in the air. Suddenly, a voice spoke from the wall behind him.

"Full moon tonight, is it?" the deep, but elegant, voice of Frederick Black Sr. echoed.

Remus sighed and turned around to face Frederick, and as he did so, he saw that Frederick wore a pitiful expression on his aged and wrinkled face.

"Yes, unfortunately," Remus said with obvious sorrow in his voice, and then he sighed again.

"May I say it, you look dreadful. Are you quite sure you will be alright?", his voice was full of concern, which made Remus' heart leap at the thought that this man actually cared for him.

"Yes, at least I think I will. I've got Sirius here, after all. I think Moony will be really happy to see him again," Remus smiled at all the memories of the two canines together, and somewhere at the surface the wolf inside him stirred in confusion. The wolf might even have been a little hopeful, and the wolf managed to send Remus human mind a tiny, desperate thought. "Paddy?" the wolf asked, in an almost childlike voice.

Remus, who got totally thrown aback by the wolf's question, didn't hear Frederick when he first spoke.

"Sorry? I didn't quite catch that.."

"I said, but Sirius can't possibly be near you when you're in your wolf form, so I don't understand how he would help you at all? And who's Moony?" now Frederick was the one to be confused.

Remus slowly made his way to the royal looking armchair he had placed across from Frederick's painting. He winced a little at the pain in his lower back as he sat down. "Sirius is an animagus. A big, black dog, not very unlike the grim really," Remus smiled as he remembered how scared he had been the first time he had seen that big, black dog lying on his bed at Hogwarts, "And Moony, well he's my wolf side. Sirius claims he's kind of cute, but I don't think I believe him.. He probably just says that because he thinks he has to," but Remus' eyes showed something else than what he was saying, they were full of love, love for his Sirius who he knew loved him no matter what shape he was in.

Frederick chuckled, "Oh, young love," and there was a gleam in his eyes, "I sometimes miss it. But I'm glad you have it," a sad little smile played on Frederick's painted lips.

"I'm so sorry for your loss," Remus' words were totally honest, he was very sorry that Frederick couldn't be together with his wife. Because he knew what it felt like, he really did. He had thought it had been the end of the world when he had seen Sirius slowly fall through the veil, a smile still etched in his face, even though his silver eyes were long gone, staring out into a space that no longer existed. "I.. I know what it feels like, to lose someone you love.."

"Oh, no harm done, Mr. Lupin. No harm done. But yes, it hurt at first to lose her. Now, as a painting, I'm not very competent of feeling very much. I feel the basic feelings, but I don't feel them as intensely as before," Frederick looked Remus in the eyes as if to assure him that he wasn't in very much pain anymore, and Remus couldn't help to notice that Frederick had almost the same shade of amber in his eyes that he had.

After Remus' talk with Frederick, he felt much better. In fact, he felt like cuddling up against Sirius' side somewhere. Because of Remus' hightened senses, finding Sirius in the gigantic house wasn't a problem at all.

Sirius was sitting in the living room sofa, filling in a crossword puzzle, biting the end of his pen in frustration.

"You know, not even dogs can digest wood, so you probably want to stop chewing that before you bite a piece off," Remus said with an amused smirk on his face as he blew a kiss across the room to Sirius instead of simply saying hello.

"Not funny, Rem. Do you know a six letter word for 'calm or quiet'?" Sirius looked frustrated and uneasy. He kept straightening his collar every other minute. His behaviour made Remus a little worried, Sirius only ever did that when he was either very upset or very scared of something.

"Placid. Sirius, what's wrong, love?" Remus frowned and seated himself on the edge of the sofa as he lovingly started to run his fingers through Sirius' by now very long locks.

Remus could smell the shampoo Sirius had used that morning, he could smell the slightest hint of the citrus fruits that Sirius liked to squeeze into his shampoo. His favourite was orange, which added orange to one of the smells that constantly surrounded Sirius, almost as if they were a part of his aura. Sirius had been doing that for as long as Remus could remember, he claimed it made the hair more luscious, even though it certainly hadn't worked on Remus' hair, it had only made it more tangled and messy. Remus also had made a couple of guesses about this on his own, he thought it had something to do with Sirius' childhood. His best guess came from a fact Sirius had told him back at Hogwarts, that they only ever had exotic and expensive fruits at home, and Remus thought it must be because of that that Sirius had developed an affection for common fruits, because he didn't want to be anything like his parents.

"Nothing, I'm just a tad nervous. But really, Remie, it's nothing you should worry about," Sirius tried to pull a confident smile, but failed.

Remus placed two fingers under Sirius' chin and pulled it upwards, and that way forcing his lover to look him in the eyes. For a brief moment grey eyes were locked with amber ones, and there seemed to be sparks flying between them, but then the grey eyes started to falter and try to look away.

"Nervous of what?" Remus demanded, once again locking his gaze in Sirius'.

"I.. I'm not sure if I'm able to change into a dog anymore.. I'm not sure if you can really be an animagus here, when you're dead, and I haven't had the guts to test it yet.. I'm so sorry Remus! I should have told you earlier.." Sirius looked deeply ashamed and upset about this, and his eyes became almost silver under the intense emotions.

Remus swayed a little, as if an invisible man had punched him in the stomach, but he seemed to gather himself up pretty quickly and said, "Sirius dear, I'm sure you're still able to turn into a dog. If I'm still a werewolf, you should still be able to turn into a dog," Remus said it with such a surety that Sirius seemed relax and leaned his head into his lover's hand.

"Thankyou.." he whispered, and Remus knew that this had to have been upsetting Sirius for quite a while already. So he drew Sirius' face up for a deep, longing kiss, before he threw himself onto the sofa aswell.

Remus was seated on the edge of their bed, because Sirius had insisted on letting him transform in their bedroom, he had told Remus that 'he shouldn't have to feel like a beast, transforming in a cellar' anymore. And to be honest, Remus was eternally grateful for the offer. It made him feel almost human. He could already feel the moon starting to rise, and he undressed so that he wouldn't have to rip apart the clothes later, when the transformation kicked in. Sirius wasn't there yet, but Remus knew he wasn't far away, because he could feel Sirius' smell hanging in the air quite near, the fall leaf smell that almost always seemed to surround him. The smell that had come to mean safety to Remus, safety, kindness and warmth. As long as that smell lingered in Remus' mind, he would be alright, no matter what. Because whenever Remus could feel the smell, it almost seemed to take over his entire being.

It wasn't long before Sirius finally stepped into the room, and by that point Remus' transformation had almost started already.

"Nervous?" Sirius asked as he embraced Remus from behind, placing his chin on Remus' shoulder before kissing Remus soundly on the cheek.

"Actually, yes.. And I suppose you would be too if you knew your bones were going to break and that you were going to be in very much pain soon," Remus huffed, maybe a little moodily.

Sirius moved to stand in front of Remus instead, took Remus' hands in his and gave them a little squeeze. Then he brushed some stray strands of Remus' hair out of the werewolf's eyes, so that he would be able to see the eyes properly.

"Hey, Remie dear, don't worry. I'll be here with you all the time, and even though it will hurt to transform, I'll make sure you at least won't hurt yourself. You have my promise at that," Sirius whispered gently, and a little tear even formed in the corner of his eye, as he thought about the pain his lover soon would have to go through. And Sirius would have done anything to change it, so that it would be him having to go through the pain instead of Remus.

And at that very moment, Remus' transformation began. Remus closed his eyes tightly and stepped a few steps away from Sirius, getting mentally ready for the pain. He could hear his bones cracking but then.. nothing. He could hear them breaking, he could see them changing, but he couldn't feel the pain. He also saw the fur grow out, which was extremely strange, because usually his human mind would have been long gone by now. He stretched his hand out in front of him and saw his bones grow, wiggled his fingers and watched curiously.

It dawned on Remus that this full moon wouldn't be like any before it, and he felt like he could cry of joy as he tiredly got to lie down on the bed beside the big, black dog that was Sirius, for Sirius was still able to become a dog. And when Padfoot had licked Moony on the nose, they both fell asleep, grateful for the happy surprise that they had gotten.

The next day when Remus woke up he expected to see Sirius lying beside him, but instead he found himself staring at a big, black dog that smelled of oranges. The dog was snoring quite loudly, and at every exhale it blew stinky air at Remus. It took Remus a while to remember that this dog was in fact his boyfriend, as a dog. He was an animagus. Right. An Animagus that became a dog to help him through his transformations. Which reminded him of the night before, and a weak smile played on his lips as he remembered the totally pain-free night. He couldn't wait to tell Frederick! He decided that that was exactly what he should go and do, so he ruffled the raven fur on the dog's head playfully before he started to slide out of bed. But the dog awoke and yawned very widely, and apparently it had no intentions on letting Remus escape the bedroom. Remus chuckled, that was so very like Sirius. The dog jumped out of the bed and ran around it, before it seated itself on the floor at Remus' feet where it stared up at Remus with puppy eyes, it's tail wagging and it's tongue hanging out of it's mouth. Remus laughed and started scratching the dog behind it's ears, and got a big, wet dog kiss as a reward.

Yes, this was exactly what Remus wanted to wake up to every night after his transformations. A dog by his side and no pain in his limbs whatsoever.

Remus had finally come to peace with his inner wolf.


	12. Chapter 12

**Please note that the world of Harry Potter belongs to Rowling, therefore I take no credit in it or the characters I use for this fanfic.**

**Note from the Author: Yes, I would still be very happy for constructive reviews (or any reviews at all really). Also, if you find any mistakes with the spelling or grammar, please let me know.**

**English isn't my native language, but I try to look up words I'm not sure on how to spell correctly, it's just that translators usually aren't very reliable.**

**And yes, I know this chapter is a bit shorter than the other ones, and I apologize for that.  
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A couple of weeks after Sirius had lost his surname, he came wandering into the library one afternoon while Remus was reading in the regal looking armchair he now considered his.

Sirius stopped on the floor about halfway through the library and stared at a spot right above Remus' head.

Remus peered above his dusty volume and was genuinely surprised to see Sirius of all people in the library, for Sirius had never liked libraries. Not even the one at Hogwarts, even though Remus had always thought it had been magnificent.

Remus let the book drop to his lap and studied Sirius' expression carefully, and nodded at the sight of the subtle confusion in Sirius' face, as if to encourage him to speak his mind.

"Yes, Siri?" Remus asked, when Sirius still hadn't spoken after a couple of minutes.

Sirius opened his mouth and closed it again, like a goldfish, and then he seemed to think about what he was going to say. "I.. I wanted to take action on the name-changing thing, but I just.. I want to make it official, but I can't find any way to do it since we're the only people here, at least the only ones I know of.. And I thought you're probably wiser than all the paintings in this house combined," at this the majority of the paintings on the wall snorted and threw disapproving glances at Sirius, "so I want your opinon on the matter. What should I do?" Sirius had said all this without breathing even once, and he seemed quite desperate to get a new name. "_Poor thing" _ Remus thought "_It must be terrible not to have a name"._

Remus put his book down with a thud on a small table next to the chair where he used to keep his teacup, and then he stood up and walked over to Sirius with five carefully measured steps so he ended up about an arms-length away from Sirius. Then he raised his hand and gently stroked Sirius' unshaved cheek, and Sirius' lids fluttered shut under the soft touch.

"You don't know how honored I feel that you actually want to do this. It feels like by doing this you're uniting our souls so they become one, like an anti-horcrux," Sirius almost started laughing at the comparison between their souls molded into one and an anti-horcrux (which Sirius was pretty sure didn't exist anyway), but Remus effectively shut him up by placing a slim hand over his mouth, "Don't laugh Siri! I'm trying to be serious. Very well, the best thing I can come up with is that we probably should try to send an owl to the Ministry. Even if we don't get a response, it's still worth a try, isn't it?" Remus smiled, trying to convince both himself and Sirius.

Sirius loved it when Remus smiled, it made the fragile skin around his eyes wrinkle, but in a good way.

"You know, you're not really Sirius, I am," Sirius said and winked, which made Remus roll his eyes and shoo Sirius out of the library. That was a line followed by a face that Remus had heard and seen far too many times to be considered healthy during his school days, and the line had become pretty worn out already. It had been Sirius' response whenever a teacher had asked him to "Try to be serious, just this once."

And the library was sacred ground to Remus, so he didn't want Sirius running around more than necessary, even though it was technically his library.

After Sirius had been so abruptly shoved out of the library he started to make his way up to his study through the winding, green corridors. Sirius had tried to cover them up with some red paint just after he had gotten there, but the paint seemed to sink right into the wall, letting the green come through again, even brighter than before. The house seemed to have at least some of it's old character left.

And the walls were certainly not the only things the house hadn't let him repaint..

When Sirius finally had made his way up to his study he sat down on his chair. The room had a slight touch of lavender in the air, because it was said to be calming. And Sirius needed to be as calm as possible to write, because his thoughts always seemed to wander off into faraway places.

But at least now he got something down onto the parchment.

_16.08.1998_

_Hello, dear Ministry of Magic, if you exist anymore._

_My name is Sirius, former Sirius Black. I would like to know if it is possible to change my surname into Luck, meaning my new name would be Sirius Luck._

_Thankful for reply as soon as possible._

_Sincerely, Sirius no-longer-Black._

It took Sirius half an hour to even get those five lines scribbled down onto the paper, and by that time Remus had already checked up on him twice. When Sirius was done he padded down to the door which lead to the courtyard, the only door to the outside that would let them through (the main door wouldn't open even a crack), and he went to search for his owl Jamesie.

Jamesie was hiding under a thick bush, for he was angry at Sirius because Sirius had placed him on a diet (he had become more ball-like and less owl-like since Remus had joined them, so Sirius was suspecting Remus was fattening him in order to gain his respect), and as Sirius peered under the bush he shrieked angrily and slowly padded around on the spot so he ended up turning his back to Sirius.

Sirius decided he was not having any of Jamesies bad mood and dragged the screeching chocolate brown owl out of it's hidingplace.

Sirius felt a surge of pain in his chest as he saw the streaks of black among the otherwise brown feathers. They reminded him om James' hair, that's why he had named the ruddy bird Jamesie in the first place. On the other hand, he should have known better than to torture himself like that.

The owl struggled in his arms when he tried to tie the letter to it's legs, and at one point it almost pecked his eye out, but he got the letter attached to it and tried to throw it into the air. Jamesie, however, had no intentions on letting go of Sirius' arm, so he stood there and waved his arm for quite some time before the owl finally let go of it.

Since Jamesie was more ball-like than owl-like, he flied pretty wobbily. Sirius stood grumpily and watched the owl disappear above the black tile roof of Grimmauld Place 12, while the sweet gum-like scent of the flowers in the yard washed over him.

"I swear, that owl has a worse temper than James ever had, even when we had been up all night watching you on full moons.." Sirius muttered as he sat down on a wobbly chair in the kitchen and leaned his head in his hand.

Remus, who stood at the counter pouring himself a glass of orange juice, chuckled and then moved over to peck an orangy kiss on Sirius' cheek, "Sirius dear, no need to overreact. You wouldn't be too happy if you had to be on a diet either, even though it would certainly do you good," Remus placed himself in Sirius' lap and started stroking his thumb over a scratch on Sirius' high cheekbone. "Although.. He really hurt you.." and then he placed a light kiss onto the scratch, as if he wanted to heal it with his lips.

Sirius grasped Remus' hand and placed it over his heart, and into Remus' ear he whispered "I love you Remie. I really, really do. I could never live without you, and those twelve years in Azkaban was hell for me," and his voice sounded so broken down and completely stripped of all his former pride, left was only his sorrow and pain. And of course, his love for Remus.

He sounded so desperate, and his eyes were so begging, that Remus could not do anything else than to simply hold him tightly in his arms, like a protective nest, and tell him, "I love you too Siri. Every second away from you I was drowning in my own tears. I tried not to think about you, especially not after you had died and I had a family to take care of, but every day I had to lock myself up in a bathroom just to be able to cry. And Merlin, did I cry.." Remus didn't sound very whole himself..

From Sirius' throat arose something like a sob mixed with giggle, and he said a little huskily, "Well, I didn't cry, of course. I'm a Black, Black's don't cry," but then he seemed to realize what he had said and buried his face into Remus' light brown mess of hair.

And Remus held his lover and stroked his back for hours and hours until darkness fell outside, and he decided it was time to move up to the bedroom. So he picked Sirius up as gently as he could and carried the broken down man up to their bedroom, over the redcarpeted floor and onto their bed, where he equally gently laid the man down onto the bed.

With a quick spell he replaced Sirius' worn jeans and shirt with his equally worn striped pajamas. Red and Gold, for Gryffindor of course. The man had always longed to be as different from the rest of his family as possible.

Then he used another spell to place the cover over Sirius, then he manually changed into his own pajamas and climbed into the bed, where he let the crisp sheets embrace him as he held an arm around Sirius' waist.

"It hurts, not to know where you belong. Not to know who you are anymore. Like, yesterday you knew who you were, and today you don't, you've been stripped of your identity.

It really, really hurts not to know who you are, you know?" Sirius said after a while, when Remus had been just about to drift asleep.

Remus seemed to think about it for a while, then he yawned and drew Sirius closer to his body and answered, "Yes, I do."


	13. Chapter 13

**Please note that the world of Harry Potter belongs to Rowling, therefore I take no credit in it or the characters I use for this fanfic.**

**And I'm sorry I haven't updated for a while, I haven't really got an excuse.. But I really am sorry, I just hope this chapter makes up for it!**

The next day Remus woke up from the sun burning the delicate skin on his cheek. The bedroom he shared with Sirius seemed to be vibrating and was immensely hot. A bead of sweat rolled down his neck, even though it was already autumn.

As he squinted towards the window he noticed that the bed beside him was empty, Sirius was nowhere around and his cover was halfway down the bed. This was not very unusual, Sirius was quite a morning-person, and as Remus used his wand to check the time he saw that it was only 6 o' clock.

That was when Remus caught the smell of burnt bacon hanging in the air. That wasn't very unusual either, since Sirius was a lousy cook Remus often did all of the cooking, but Sirius seemed to have been impatient this morning.

After lying on the bed for five more minutes, taking in the foul smell, Remus decided he ought to do something about it, so he got up and summoned his morning-robe. Then he wobbily made his way down the many stairs to the kitchen and saw thick, black smoke flowing out from under the door. This was worse than ever before (even that time when Sirius had tried to cook his own fish and chips and the whole stove had exploded, leaving Sirius happily laughing his ass off on the floor and a very grumpy Remus to clean up the mess).

He slammed the door open, his heart beating loudly in his chest, prepared for the worst - and there Sirius was, sitting at the table staring at a crumpled letter he held in his hands, the bacon forgotten in the frying pan, which was the source of the heavy smoke.

"Sirius, what in Merlin's name are you doing?" Remus asked bewondered as he started waving his wand distractedly to clean up the mess.

"Rem? Come and take a look at this, will you?" Sirius said as his brows furrowed in confusion.

Remus moved to stand behind Sirius' chair and leaned in over Sirius' shoulder to read the letter, his cheek lightly brushing against Sirius' soft hair as he did so. "Is it the Ministry of.. Ooooh," and Remus just stared at the parchment with wide eyes. "Oh my, are you sure this is from him?"

"Moony, I've only seen his writing on my detention sheets a couple of million times or so."

"Oh, well, if you say so.. should we reply?"

"I don't know, I'm not the smart one here, but I suppose it would be the polite thing to do," Sirius said, sounding a bit annoyed.

"I'll reply to him later then."

Remus re-read the letter.

_17. August 1998_

_Hello, Sirius. I thought you'd end up here. I'm sorry, but we can't give you a new name,_

_You're the only one who can do that. _

_Now don't worry, Sirius dear, all you have to do is to say "I, Sirius, now declare my name is Sirius Luck" and that's it!_

_Forgive an old man his curiousness, but how did you lose your surname in the first place?_

_And is Remus with you? And now you may wonder how I know you're a couple? _

_Well, you've got identical necklaces, and at least Remus wore his the entire time he was a teacher at Hogwarts, and the spark between you has always been plain to see, for those who have bothered to look._

_Oh, and I hope you don't mind I gave your owl a few treats, it was so terribly grumpy, you see._

_It kept snapping at my hands._

_Best wishes, _

_Albus Dumbledore _

_(Minister of Magic, Order of Merlin, First Class, Grand Sorc., Chf. Warlock, Supreme Mugwump, International Confed. of Wizards)_

"So he took the post after he passed away.. How curious, I could have sworn he'd never take the post. On the other hand, I don't think there were alot of other options, surely there can't be very many people in this world? And what did he mean, that he thought you'd end up here?" Remus looked more confused than Sirius felt like, so he did what he always did when he wanted to think better; he played with Sirius' lovely, long locks.

"I can't believe he fed my owl! Jamesie's on a diet! And I always thought he would take it though, he's definitely wiser than all the previous ministers together. And in fact, I think there are. Everyone who's.. waiting for someone, they gather here.

He probably just understood that I'd wait for you," Sirius said as he turned around and pulled Remus' face down for a morning kiss.

Remus chuckled, "Speaking of waiting, I'm waiting for breakfast. I'm starving," he then winked and seated himself on the chair across from Sirius'. "What are we having for breakfast? Burnt bacon?" Remus raised his eyebrow and looked suggestively at Sirius, and his glance held just the tiniest bit of anger and worry.

"I'm sorry if I frightened you, Dear. I was just so shocked it was Dumby who replied, and I had to sit down to be able to take it in, really. Therefore I forgot everything remotely related to bacon. I'm sorry for ruining yet another frying pan," he threw on his puppy eyes for extra effect, for he knew that Remus always softened under those eyes.

"You scared the living daylight out of me! Don't you ever dare to even start cooking breakfast without me again! And about that pan, just banish it. It was rubbish anyway, it burns things too easily," a wicked smile played on Remus' lips at that.

Sirius reached his hand across the table and took Remus' hand in his. He raised it to his mouth, palm facing the table, and then he hovered his mouth above it, almost kissing it, but still not, Remus could feel the air between them vibrating, as if filled with electricity.

"I, Sirius, now declare my name is Sirius Luck," and then he let his lips touch Remus' hand, as gentle as a summer breeze.

The days following that incident, Walburga Black's painting was alot louder and more annoying than ever before. It was almost as if she could sense the change in name of her disinherited heir. After three days, Sirius had finally had enough and got a very wicked idea.

He was trying to cuddle with Remus on the living room sofa, while Remus was trying very hard to ignore the whimpering dog-like noises Sirius kept making while pecking small kisses from his collarbone up to his jawline , when Walburga started screaming obscenities again.

"That is IT! I can't take this anymore! She's waking us up in the middle of the night, disturbing our cuddling sessions and destroying every shread of peace we have!" Sirius almost shouted, as the same time as he sprung up from the sofa and stormed out of the room.

Remus, who was afraid he'd do something stupid, was quick to place the book down and get on his feet and follow him.

His chase lead him to the fifth floor, where Sirius' childhood bedroom lay. As he walked through the corridors in a quick pace after Sirius, he saw old wooden doors thrown of their hinges, the contents of the rooms behind them completely scattered around the floor. Pieces of old books, parchments, paintings, quills, bedsheets and countless other things lay in piles on the floor, and the rooms seemed to have been wrecked by brute force alone. No, no magic had been used here. The corridor smelled of burnt wood and alcohol, and every surface both in the rooms and in the corridor seemed to be covered in a thick layer of grey dust.

Remus gulped audibly, he had rarely set his foot on this floor since he had arrived, mostly because he knew the floor contained many bad memories for Sirius from his childhood days.

As Sirius walked into his old bedroom, he stopped dead in the middle of the floor, just staring at the deep green wall above the four poster bed, where a Gryffindor scarf, countless photographs and a poster of a Muggle motorcycle were permanently stuck to the wall. This room was as destroyed as the other ones.

Remus put a comforting hand on Sirius' shoulder, and with a voice as gentle, loving and caring as he could manage, he asked "Siri, what are you doing?"

"If.. if her painting can be stuck upon the wall, I bet I can stick something else on top of her painting. If I remember it right, I've got another poster of a motorcycle in a drawer somewhere. Could you help me look?"

Remus wanted to tell Sirius that he didn't really think it was a very good idea, but he didn't have the heart to deny his Sirius this. "Sure love, whatever you need."

And so they searched the room together until they found a poster of a black motorcycle with red flames on the sides, it was Remus who found it under the bed.

"AHA! Found it! Should we go and paste it over your mother then?" Remus asked and offered Sirius a reassuring smile.

Sirius smiled back weakly and just took Remus' hand in his as an answer, and started leading him through a trapdoor cleverly concealed as a banner of a big serpent. Sirius hissed sharply at it three times, and it kindly rolled up to reveal an entrance just high enough for Remus to walk through without any problems. Sirius had to bend his head a little, and as the passage was quite narrow, and Sirius still insisted on letting their hands stay woven together, he kept hitting his shoulder in the cold stone wall. The passage smelled slightly damp, and Remus' delicate nose could catch the weak scent of cooking spices.

After a turn the passage ended in a steep staircase, where Sirius insisted he'd go first, for Remus' saftety. "Always such a gentleman," Remus thought. So down they went, and they ended up in a doorway to the main kitchen (for Grimmauld Place had several kitchens, they didn't actually use the main kitchen though), where every surface seemed to be covered in dust, some pots and pans still stacked in the sink.

Behind them the door sealed itself, acting as just a piece of wall. You couldn't see any seams at all.

From the kitchen Sirius led Remus through the main diningroom, the big livingroom and down the grand staircase to the entrance hallway. This had actually been a quicker route than walking through the many winding corridors on the fifth floor to get to the grand staircase.

Walburga didn't have any time to react before Sirius had covered her portrait with the poster, and her angry shouting now sounded like muffled curses.

"Thankyou for everything, _mother_," Sirius spat, the last word sounding like poison.

Remus looked at Sirius with hurting eyes, he knew just how he felt. His mother hadn't been easy on him for being a werewolf either, though it could of course never compare to all the horrible things this woman had said and done to her son throughout his life.

Now Remus decided that Sirius looked like he clearly needed some comfort, so he embraced him and held him firmly, stroking his hand over Sirius' back reassuringly, as Sirius burrowed his head into the crook of Remus' neck and let out small sobs, that got muffled against Remus' thick, knitted sweater.

Muffled sobs he never would have let anybody else hear, Remus was the only one in the world who could ever hear them, he was the only one he trusted enough, besides James of course.

But James was dead and gone, so he couldn't hear any sobs.

And Sirius hated himself for crying over his mother.

And Remus kept holding Sirius as Sirius kept hating himself, until they both dropped down to the floor after a while to rest, and right there, Sirius fell asleep with his head in Remus' lap, while Remus was tucking stray strands behind his ear. While Remus was running his hands through that ravenblack hair, thinking about how much he truly loved this man.


	14. Chapter 14

**Please note that the world of Harry Potter belongs to Rowling, therefore I take no credit in it or the characters I use for this fanfic.**

Remus walked into the library, hoping for a quiet hour or so of reading, he noticed a book sticking out of one of the shelves in a strange way, so he padded over to inspect it.

It was plain, brown leather, and it didn't seem to have any title, so Remus tried to pull it out to get a closer look at it, only, he found he couldn't pull it out. It was as if it was stuck in that position, not moving an inch more. Remus shrugged and instead pushed the book back in again, so he wouldn't have to be annoyed by the book while he was trying to read.

That was when the big, wooden shelf spinned around an revealed.. a pensieve.

Remus, shocked out of action, soon realized there was even a memory in it, and he couldn't help but feel he was supposed to dive into it. Surely, it had to be on purpose that he had discovered the book sticking out? Someone must have left it like that?

Remus took a quick look around to examine the paintings, but almost every one of them were sleeping.. Except for one, Frederick, but he wasn't in his frame, so Remus figured it was okay for him to do this. And that was about the last thing he thought before he dived head first into the pensieve and felt the sucking of the memory.

He whirled around and around in a white fog until he finally landed with a great thump. And he was very shocked to see he was currently standing on the stairs leading down to the Grimmauld Place cellar. It was very dark, but in the door above him he could clearly see a man. A sturdy looking man with very defined cheekbones and a determined looking mouth, with curly, black hair that was almost glowing in the light that radiated from the floor above them. The man could not be anyone else but Orion Black, Sirius' father, and Remus realized where Sirius had gotten his looks from. Even though he couldn't help thinking that Sirius was immensely more beautiful. At least his eyes weren't as cold as a Malfoy is pale on a winter day.

He figured Orion didn't seem like the man who stood in a cellar door without purpose, so he looked around for the cause of his presence. That was when he spotted him, a dark tangle of limbs at the end of the stairs, a head still looking determinately up at his father. The raven hair seemed even more tangled than Remus had ever remembered it, and there was a big bruise blooming on Sirius' cheek. Remus guesstimated Sirius' age to the summer between their fourth and fifth year at Hogwarts.

"It has come to my notice that you have attacked, on several occasions, our dear Bellatrix. And many other very well respected Slytherins as well. I knew your mother and I must have gone wrong somewhere when you got sorted into Gryffindor, but this.. _This._ Your mother is ashamed and disappointed beyond words, as so am I," Orion spat with contempt in his voice. He glared down at his son with a gaze that would have made anyone else but Sirius shy away.

Sirius, on the other hand, kept staring up at his father's face, letting his father's emotions reflect in his own face, "I don't want you to bloody feel proud of me in any way! I never asked to be a part of this godforsaken family," Sirius spat back just as fiercely.

Orion's nostrils flared as he in anger hissed, "Do you know how disgraceful it is for your mother and I to have to apologize to respectful wizards in this country, for what you did to their sons and daughters? Have you any idea how stained our reputation has become because of you? For your actions, you will rot here in this cellar for the rest of the summer," then he turned and started closing the door.

"As long as I don't have to be anywhere near you or the rest of my family. Even this place seems cozier than having to sit through one more meal by your side," Sirius said in what probably thought was a low voice. Unfortunately, Orion had heard him.

Orion hissed and withdrew his wand, pointed it at Sirius, and with a voice that would probably scare even Voldemort himself said, "You will pay for your betrayal. _Crucio!"_

Remus gasped for air as he fell to his knees, and in horror watched Orion point his wand for almost a full minute at his own son, who in that minute let escape several agonized screams, as his hurting limbs contorted into painful positions.

After Sirius stopped breathing, Orion finally thought he was done, so he turned his heel and closed the door with a firm 'Click', leaving his son in a big lump in the dark cellar, not even bothering to check his pulse. Then Remus heard his footsteps fade up the stairs.

Remus was sobbing and crawled down to the lump that was Sirius, trying to grab his thin shoulders, but finding he was grasping nothing but air. Sirius was a ghost to him, and all Remus could do was to sit and silently sob until the memory finally thought he was done with it, and once again he was whirling around in the white fog.

This time he landed on the floor of the library, whirling around as if to run out to find Sirius in that very moment, but he found Sirius was already sitting in a chair in the library. In _his _chair.

All the paintings were wide awake now, and seemed rather curious. Sirius, on the other hand, was deathly pale and couldn't stand looking at Remus. Instead, he was gazing at a point straight ahead of him, and Remus noticed he held a glass of firewhiskey firmly in his hand.

Remus stumbled forward and fell to his knees at Sirius' chair, where he burried his face into Sirius' thigh as he cried. For the first time since they had both come clear about their sexualities, Sirius became stiff under Remus' embrace, seemingly not knowing quite how to handle the situation.

"How long did they keep you down there? Did they give you any food?" Remus demanded as his sobbed had started coming less frequent now.

Sirius sighed and absentmindedly started stroking Remus' chin, "Didn't you listen to what my father said? They kept me down there for the rest of the summer. Now don't look so horrified, they fed me twice a day, so I didn't starve too much."

Remus seemed shocked at how Sirius uttered the words, almost as if it was perfectly common only to be fed twice a day. Remus gulped, "Why didn't you tell me?" Remus said shakily with a blaming tone to his voice.

"I didn't want to hurt you.." Sirius started, but was quickly cut off by Remus.

"You didn't want to hurt me? So you don't think it hurts knowing you didn't want to tell be about this? Was it because you thought you couldn't trust me?" Remus was now shaking with tears, drawing back as Sirius tried to grasp his wrist, "_Please, _Siri.. I need to know," and then he lowered his head, allowing his tears to fall freely to the floor.

"Because I was afraid you were going to react like I would. I was afraid you'd kill someone. If it had been you, I would have killed your parents, and I would never dream of making you a killer," Sirius finally admitted.

Remus looked up at Sirius with a loving, yet serious and still hurting expression on his face, "Sirius, you know I wouldn't have killed them.. Only seriously hurt them," the last sentence even made Sirius chuckle a little. "But still, I don't understand why you didn't tell me.. That was clearly after we had become.. involved, with eachother, and we'd _promised _not to keep secrets from eachother.. I would have told you, you know I would.. I would never have kept a secret like that from you."

"Watch your tongue!" Sirius hissed playfully, "You went three years without telling us, your best mates, that you were a werewolf. And the only reason you told us, was because we had already figured it out."

Remus grew pale, "But.. But that's not the same thing.. I did it for survival.." Remus still lowered his head in guilt.

"It's exactly the same thing. I had to keep it a secret for my survival too. It would have killed me to talk about it. These things are both very painful things to us, things that come alive as we speak of them. I know the wolf in you awakens every time you talk about it. Every time I talk about my memory, which certainly isn't often, I'm back in that room. Deathly scared of the darkness, not wanting to move an inch in case a monster would be lurching for me."

Remus finally seemed to realize what his lover was talking about, and once again lowered his head onto Sirius' thigh, sobbing. "I'm sorry.. That's why you're afraid of the dark, isn't it?" he asked, as Sirius' hand travelled down to his head and started scratching his scalp a little.

Merlin, he loved it when Sirius' nails were a little longer, they were the best for scratching at that point.

Sirius shuddered as he remembered all the nights he had spent terrified beside his Remus in bed, clinging to him as if Remus was the only thing preventing him from drowning. All those nights, he had been sure the monsters would be there to eat him again. At those nights, Remus had had to try to calm him down as much as possible, after he had placed a silencing charm on the curtains surrounding their bed, so that Sirius could cry if he wanted to, without losing any dignity or respect from the other boys at all.

Remus hadn't known what was going on, but he had simply accepted the fact that his lover was scared almost to death by something, and that he had to be the one to calm him down. It was usually the other way around, since Sirius usually was the strong, protective person.

"Yes," Sirius shuddered, as he continued to scratch Remus' scalp, drawing happy moans from the man on the floor, which made him laugh as he finally relaxed a little in his chair, his firewhiskey long forgotten. He had something so much better at curing aching hearts than firewhiskey. He had a soulmate.

After a while, Remus had almost fallen asleep on the floor when Sirius accidentally knocked down his glass of firewhiskey so the class scattered on the floor, the amber liquid slowly spreading on the antique carpet.

"Bloody hell, Remus please wake up! This will stain badly if you don't help me right now!" Sirius pleaded, "I'm not good at household spells.."

"Don't worry love, I've got it," Remus said confidently as he stood up and pecked a kiss onto Sirius' lips, that still tasted of firewhiskey, and muttered a quick spell. The amber liquid slowly evaporated from the carpet, and Sirius let out a sigh of relief when it was completely gone.

"I don't get it though.. You hate this house, why would you worry if you stain a carpet?" Remus frowned.

"Well, this isn't just any carpet, this is the library carpet. And the library is probably the purest room in the house, because it's so filled with your soul. It's like the house has accepted you as the owner of this specific room, and the moment I walk in here, I can feel your spirit surrounding me. That calm, dusty, bookwormy feeling," Sirius offered a dashing smile.

Remus nodged Sirius playfully with his elbow, before he looked down onto the aged, but still beautiful man, and asked him, "Would you like some hot chocolate, along with a cholate bar? It cures even the worst of heartaches, I ensure you," Remus smiled.

"You and your bloody chocolate," Sirius muttered, but he took the hand Remus offered him, and allowed Remus to drag him down to the kitchen.

And hot chocolate he got, with small marshmallows, whipped cream and the whole deal.

Sirius was his goofy self again, getting whipped cream all over his mustasche, and then wiggled his eyebrow and asked, "Fancy a snog, love?" making Remus giggle so much he almost fell out of his chair.


	15. Chapter 15

**Please note that the world of Harry Potter belongs to J., therefore I take no credit in it or the characters I use for this fanfic.**

**And when I started writing this, I told myself I wouldn't be the one to beg for reviews, but now, here I am. Begging. Please review, I don't want people getting scared away by the low review number!**

**And I'd really like some constructive criticism, it's hard to judge yourself you know.**

Remus walked into the kitchen and saw streams of thick, pink melted ice-cream running over the floor from under the kitchen pantry door.

"SIRIUS! You forgot to renew the freezing charm on the pantry!" he shouted.

Remus was just about to swing his wand at the melted ice-cream, when the pantry door swung open with a loud creak, and there, stark naked with melted ice-cream trickling down the full length of his body, Sirius stood posing seductively in the doorframe.

"Oh, did I now? I'm sorry, it must have _slipped_," Sirius made a big show of sucking some ice-cream off his finger, "off my mind."

They were standing under a tree on the bank of the Hogwarts lake. In the distance they could see five Gryffindor and Hufflepuff Third Years tickle one of the Giant Squid's tentacles. It seemed to enjoy it because it was splashing water around, but didn't withdraw it's tentacle.

Sirius was leaning casually, but elegantly, against the trunk of the tree. Remus was pacing back and forth nervously.

"Would you please stop that, love? There's going to be a big hole in the ground if you don't stop soon, plus you're driving me insane," Sirius said, trying to tuck a loose strand of black hair behind his ear, without success.

"Aren't you quite mad already though? And would you please do something about that hair already, it's almost as bad as James'," Remus replied irritably, but when Sirius pouted at him with a hurt puppy look he sighed and added, "I'm sorry Siri, I'm just worried about my N.E.W.T:s, and about what will happen after we leave school. I mean, I'm a werewolf, for Merlin's sake. I'm not going to get any jobs anywhere, no matter how good my grades are!"

Sirius caught Remus in his arms as he was passing by and held his head firmly between his hands, so that Remus was forced to look him in the eyes. "Listen to me, and listen to me good," Sirius said in a voice loaded with fire, "If anyone _ever_ treats you badly or disrespects you for being a werewolf, I will personally make sure they suffer badly. The Black is still a powerful name, I'd get away with murder if I wanted to."

"Sirius, they have all the reasons in the world to be afraid of me, and they have all the right in the world to.." but he was cut off by Sirius.

"They have no reason whatsoever to fear you, you're not a beast. You and the wolf are two different people." Sirius' eyes looked as if they were afire, silver glistening bright.

Remus offered a sad smile, "Oh but we are. He's always here, always lurking so dangerously close to the surface. I can feel him in every move I make."

Sirius turned them around and shoved Remus up against the tree and growled, "Then Padfoot will tame him."

In the distance, the Third Years lost their interest in the Squid, and started walking back to the castle, soaked from head to toe.

The deep blue sky above them was littered with stars, as they lay on top of the Astronomy Tower, giggling and holding hands. They may or may not have had a few butterbeers before they made their way up there. The air was quite cold, as it was the beginning of winter on their Fifth Year at Hogwarts.

"Moony, it's cold, can we go inside soon?" Sirius pouted. Sirius liked pouting, he knew that he could always get what he wanted, if he just tilted his head a bit and batted his lashes.

The only exception to this rule seemed to be the teachers at Hogwarts and, of course, Remus.

Remus seemed to be immune to things like that.

Remus chuckled, "No Paddy, this is the best time for stargazing, and I'm not missing this opportunity," but Remus cast a slight warming charm on them to make Sirius a little bit happier.

Sirius hummed contently as he felt the faint tickle of the warming charm.

"You know Remie, there is a star somewhere up there that is named after me," Sirius said as he gazed up into the unknown.

"Of course there is, when did you come across that knowledge, if I may ask?" Remus chuckled softly.

"Last week, I heard some Fourth Years talking about the Sirius star, and I immediately figured someone must have adored me enough to name a star after me," Sirius said as he batted his lashes.

Remus was grinning now, a genuine, toothy grin. "Well, if it weren't for your naps during Astrology lessons, you might have learnt that last year like the rest of us."

"I did NOT sleep during lessons!" Sirius tried his best innocent face.

"If you say so," Remus said and bent forward to capture Sirius' lips with his own.

It was a kiss of pure bliss.

Remus was awake now. Yes, he was definitely awake now, he could feel his back aching from when he slipped in the bath yesterday.

But still something wasn't quite right... There was screaming. Oh Merlin, why was there screaming?

Remus snapped awake in less than a second and bolted to the source of the screaming, which appeared to be their en suite bathroom. In the door he stumbled on his slightly too big pajama bottoms and landed on his stomach on their marble floor.

That was when he noticed there wasn't any screaming anymore, just a horrified Sirius who stared at himself in the mirror with big eyes.

"Sirius, were you screaming a second ago?"

Sirius' mouth hung open, and he looked a little bit like a goldfish, before he stuttered, "I.. I've got grey hairs!"

Remus groaned and let his head sink to the floor. "Why do you always have to make my mornings so terrible?" he mumbled agains the cool marble.

"Forget about your morning and think about _my_ morning instead! Moony, I have grey hair! Look, here! Three grey hairs!" Sirius' expression was one of pure terror, as he pointed towards the place where the three hairs supposedly were located.

Remus finally found the strength to rise from the floor, "Sirius dear, you're getting old. You're supposed to get grey hair! Besides, those years in Azkaban surely didn't slow down your aging."

"Remus, don't you know a charm or something that will make my hair black again?" Sirius pleaded with his best puppy eyes.

Remus sighed but gave Sirius a determined look, "Yes, but I won't tell you. Age with grace."

Then Remus pecked a soft kiss on Sirius' pouting, pink lips and went back to their bedroom to get dressed, his steps completely soundless on the marble floor.

During the last weeks, Sirius' owl Jamesie had become increasingly more fat, and was now unable to fly higher than the first window of Grimmauld place.

When Sirius came down for breakfast after his early morning shock, he froze in the middle of a step and looked at his owl, who was currently snoozing on his breakfast plate.

"Brilliant! Why didn't I think of that before? We could just cook him for dinner tomorrow and we'd be rid of that ruddy bird!"

Remus glanced at him over the top of his crumpled 15 year old Daily Propeth. "Yes, marvellous idea indeed," he replied in a smug voice, "And then maybe, we could do the same with you, and we'd be rid of two problems in this world; and owl that is too fat to fly and a grumpy old man."

Sirius' nostrils flared, "I AM NOT OLD!" he bellowed, so that the kitchen windows rattled.

* * *

><p>Remus sighed as he closed the door behind himself and sank down in his armchair, head in his hands, gently rubbing his temples to soothe his pain away.<p>

He heard a faint chuckle from the wall ahead of him, and he lifted his head just high enough for him to be able to give a curt nod of hello to the withered painting of Mr. Frederick Black Sr.

"Master of the house feeling moody today, is he?" Mr. Black asked, eyes twinkling with delight.

Remus sighed, "He found a grey hair and won't accept that he's starting to become old. He really gave me a headache, waking me up like that."

"Yes, I heard. In fact, I'd be surprised if there was a single painting in this house who didn't hear him."

"He's acting quite childishly about it though, I just wish he'd get a mental grey hair too, preferably sometime soon. But after all, he did lose 12 years of mental development, since it practically stopped in Azkaban. And I don't see what his problem is, I've had grey hairs for ages." Remus' head sank, if possible, even deeper into his hands.

"Yes yes, I suppose you're right. Young Sirius is still a very intelligent man, he's just always been a bit too.. Lively? No, emotional. Or maybe both. Well, there's never peace and quiet when he's around."

"So you've noticed then? It was even worse during Hogwarts. And now, if you excuse me, I think I'd like a nice, scream-free nap right here," Remus yawned, and he fell asleep in a matter of minutes, and slept there until Sirius quietly sneaked through the door in the evening, lifted him up and carried him in his arms to their bed.

All this without waking him, for he realised, that he was the source of Remus' pain, and then he at least had to make sure he wouldn't disturb him. Maybe he was finally sprouting a mental grey hair.


	16. Chapter 16

**Please note that the world of Harry Potter belongs to J., therefore I take no credit in it or the characters I use for this fanfic.**

**And absolutely no money is being made on this either, it's for the sole purpose of stopping Sirius and Remus from inhabiting my brain.**

**I'd like to thank my friend ChapterKing for giving me ideas and helping me to get going!**

**I also think I need to thank marauders716 for reviewing my whole story and coming up with alot of interesting questions that have really made me think about where this story is going. Alot of constructive criticism and inspiration has come from her, and I think continuing this story would have been alot harder without her, so give her a big round of applause!**

**Thankyou for helping a clueless writer!**

Moony was starting to find the full moon nights quite pleasurable. He got to be with his dear Padfoot, playing like two small pups, taking turns on howling towards the moon in their enchanted sky. Moony liked it best when they howled in unison though, it made all the hairs on his tail rise in pleasure.

Sometimes they went rampaging through the house, breaking pots and vases and other ancient antiques on their way, but most of the time they were pretty well behaved. Most of the time they just stayed in their bedroom, gazing up at the silver orb in their enchanted ceiling.

They would drowse on the thick carpet, once in a while nudge eachother lovingly, and sometimes Padfoot would even dare to lick Moony's snout. At those occasions, Moony would let out a warning in the form of a growl, and Padfoot would bare his neck in submission.

In the morning they would wake up curled tightly around eachother, both in their human form. Remus would bury his nose in Sirius' tangled hair, peck a kiss onto his lips and then get up to make them some breakfast.

His limbs were still aching, not from the transformation, but merely from sleeping on the hard floor, despite the thick rug.

Yes, Remus' life was finally comfortably filled with books and Sirius. And some more Sirius.

That was when it happened.

On their kitchen table one morning after a full moon, there lay an envelope addressed to Mr. Luck.

Remus frowned as he weighed the envelope in his hand and decided that it's rude to open other people's letters, so he carried it up to his housemate.

"Sirius, you've got a letter!" he helled halfway up the stairs. He was already out of breath and thought it would be better if Sirius could fetch it from there.

"Oooooooooooh, is it from Dumby? I'd like to know what he thought about those dungbombs!" came Sirius' giggling voice from up above.

Remus turned the envelope in his hands, there was no other name on it than Sirius' own.

"No, I don't think so. It's quite odd actually. And WHAT dungbombs are you talking about exactly?"

Sirius' face appeared at the top of the stairs, peeking down over the railing. He looked oddly pale, and grew even paler at the sight of the envelope. Then he suddenly bolted down the stairs to Remus, who found this all very odd and a bit unnerving.

He took the envelope and examined it closely, before he carefully opened it, pulled out the parchment and let the envelope fall to the floor.

Remus glanced at the fallen envelope and then at Sirius, who was staring at the letter in a shock like state. Remus decided he better do something about it.

"Sirius, dear, what is it?" he said as he moved to stand behind Sirius, so he could read the letter.

_Half has passed, half remains._

That was all it said. No signature, no date, not anything. The ink looked frighteningly much like blood though.

"What is it?" Remus asked again, as his brows furrowed in confusion.

Sirius folded the letter and placed it in his pocket in one, swift movement. "Nothing love, nothing at all. Probably just Dumbles messing with us," Sirius even attempted a small laugh, but it just sounded forced and fake, which only made Remus' suspicion grow stronger.

Over the next couple of days Remus tried to talk to Sirius about the letter, but every time he tried Sirius was either very quick to change the subject or to announce that he wasn't in the mood to talk, and then went on to sulk in a corner somewhere.

"Half has passed, half remains," Remus just couldn't get it out of his head.

What did it mean and why had Sirius become so pale? Not even Remus' witty brain could solve this one, no matter how many books he went through in the library.

For lack of better ideas, Remus had written Dumbledore a letter, since Jamesie's diet seemed to have been working and he was now fit enough to fly again.

Now the reply was waiting for him on the kitchen table.

_3 November 1998_

_Dear Remus, _

_I agree with you that this all seems very qurious. A little suspicious, even._

_Alas, I must inform you that I am none the wiser than you are in this matter, I'm afraid._

_Now, about the others, yes, there are indeed other people here. But not everyone._

_You see, the people stay here while they wait for their loved ones to follow in their footsteps and greet death. Well, not everyone stays, but some do._

_Lily and James were here too, but I'm sorry to inform you they moved on after they heard the news of Voldemort's death, when they knew that their Harry would be safe, that he wouldn't have to fight anymore._

_Sometimes, you're just a little too late. I'm sorry Remus, I really am._

_I may be an old fool, but I, too, knows how it feels to love someone so dearly like you and Sirius loved James._

_It broke my heart when I first heard the news about James' death. My favourite Marauders, broken apart._

_With all my Love, Dumby._

_(I quite like this name Sirius has given me.)_

_Oh, and tell Sirius I said thankyou for the dungbombs, will you? However did he get those? I suppose he must have made them himself. Brilliant, I must say!_

_Our bedroom smelled of rotten sardines for a week!_

Remus had to sit down on a chair, "They were here, and I missed them," he mumbled quietly. "They were here... and we missed them," Remus stared blankly at the letter, "SIRIUS, James and Lily were here, and we missed them!"

There was a loud bang from the floor above him, then a series of rattles followed, as if Sirius had crashed something heavy into the floor.

Why he was on the Second floor, Remus didn't know. The floor above him was only filled with the dusty old kitchen, the great dining room and the great livingroom, Sirius didn't really have any business on that floor.

Then Remus could barely hear Sirius' oh so elegant footsteps in the staircase.

A dusty, sooty and wild looking Sirius appeared in the doorway, which he leaned against so that a great deal of the soot stuck on his shirt transferred to the doorway. The sight of the soot-stain left on the doorway made Remus sigh internally.

"What? Here? They were here?" Remus pressed the letter into Sirius' hand, who read it while his jaw dropped.

Sirius staggered to the table, and had to sit down onto a chair too. The chair creaked slightly when he sat on it, as if it threatened to collapse any second.

"I can't believe this, I can't believe we missed them! We could have communicated with them, said our last goodbyes, but nooooooo. James, that arrogant prat, had to move on to live happily ever after with his precious _Lilypads," _Sirius huffed angrily.

His, by now very long, fringe fell into his eyes. He blew it away with a quick huff before he let his head sink to the table.

"Brothers, my arse," he mumbled into his arms. Remus placed a comforting hand on Sirius' sooty shoulder and rubbed it slightly. Sensing Sirius had taken this alot harder than himself, he left Sirius alone with his thoughts and retreated to his library. He really wanted to ask what Sirius had been doing up there, but he decided it could wait until tomorrow. After all, Sirius and James had been brothers in everything but blood.

The next morning Remus was awakened by the sun while Sirius was still sleeping, so he lay awake gazing at the scarlet canopy, while thinking about what Sirius might have been doing on the second floor the day before.

After half an hour or so of thinking, Sirius finally stirred in his sleep. That was the cue Remus needed, so he carefully slipped out of bed, and tucked his feet into his loafers.

Winter was almost here and The Grimmauld Place had gone chilly, so he grabbed his morning robe too.

Then he soundlessly padded through the room and down to the kitchen, where he prepared the usual breakfast, only this time he didn't wait for Sirius to come down.

Instead, he loaded all the toast, bacon, egg, sausages, tea and orange juice onto a tray and carried it back up to their bedroom. It was a real struggle not to spill the orange juice as the house had decided to imitate Hogwarts with vanishing steps and carpets that were ripped from under your feet when you stepped on them, but somehow Remus managed to get everything to their bedroom without spilling a single drop of juice or getting bacon thrown in his face.

He carefully placed the tray onto his bedside table, and then climbed back into bed to wake Sirius up with a good morning kiss.

Sirius blinked repeatedly to get used to the sunshine that was flooding in, and then he noticed the breakfast.

"Really? For me? Thanks Remus," he grinned, and then they both dug in on the food.

Remus could actually hear his stomach growling for food, the wolf in him liked to get fed often and much. Not that Remus was complaining though.

After they had finished, Remus was trying to sweep all the crumbs off their bed, without success. Sirius was lying on his stomach, supporting his head with his hands, and watching Remus with an occasional giggle.

Finally, Remus gave up with a sigh and decided it was time to ask Sirius what exactly he was up to the day before.

"Sirius, yesterday when I called up to you there was a loud bang, care to explain what that was? And on the second floor? We never use the middle floors!"

Sirius, who recognized Remus' lecturing voice, put on a slightly pleading expression. "Ehrm, yes, about that. I wouldn't go up there for a while if I were you," then Sirius' pleading facade cracked and he let a lopsided smirk show instead. The smirk did nothing but enchance his cracked and crooked teeth that had been destroyed in Azkaban, and Remus couldn't see what could possibly be that interesting with a loud bang. Maybe it was just one of his dungbombs.

But, firm as he was, Remus raised an eyebrow and glared at Sirius, "Sirius, what have you done?" but he decided it was a better idea to check it out for himself, so he set off towards the stairs with Sirius following him.

When he got down, everything looked completely normal in the livingroom. All the chairs and sofas were on their places and the bookshelves were intact, and the place certainly didn't smell of rotten sardines, so Remus continued on towards the dining room.

He hadn't even reached the door before he noticed the thick layer of soot on the carpet in front of it, and he was already dreading what it would look like on the inside.

Remus opened the door slowly and stopped in the doorway. In the room it looked like hell had broken loose, there were bricks lying everywhere, and everything was covered in soot.

"Sirius, what in Merlin's name has been going on here?" asked Remus, eyes wide.

"Ehhh, I remembered there's a secret ladder in the chimney leading up to the roof," Sirius flashed another one of his grins, "I used it as a kid to escape from this house and run away to the Potter's instead, and I wanted to clear it out and see if the house would let us out that way. Although, it didn't exactly go as planned."

"So you tore down the chimney?" Remus asked sarcastically with an eyebrow raised and an amused touch to his usual soft amber eyes.

"Kind of, yes," yet another one of his grins. Remus rolled his eyes, "Sure love, not even you could be that stupid," and with that he reached for the door. On his way out he waved his wand over his shoulder and the bricks rearranged themselves neatly back into a chimney, and all the soot disappeared up into it.

Before he disappeared completely through the door, he turned around, winked at Sirius and said, "Well, what are you waiting for?"


	17. Chapter 17

**Please note that the world of Harry Potter belongs to Joanne Rowling, therefore I take no credit in it or the characters I use for this fanfic.**

**And absolutely no money is being made on this either, it's for the sole purpose of stopping Sirius and Remus from inhabiting my brain.**

During the weeks that had passed since the chimney incident, Remus had noticed Sirius disappearing to the second floor on a regular basis, so he came to the conclusion that the house must let Sirius out through the chimney. Christmas was drawing near, and the days had become colder and darker, but Sirius still disappeared for several hours, which sometimes made Remus a little bit nervous.

Surely, the roof must be slippery since ice was already forming outside, and Remus wasn't entirely sure you couldn't die twice.

Since Sirius and Remus had agreed on not getting eachother any gifts for Christmas, which would be hard given their conditions, Remus had been developing a plan. However, it was the night before Christmas Eve when Remus could finally set his plan into action.

For weeks he had been studying spells, altering spells and inventing brand new spells, and all that just to give Sirius a bit of the Christmas magic they used to have at Hogwarts, before the war began.

As soon as Remus was absolutely sure Sirius was asleep, he sneaked out of the room without making a sound, and continued down the staircase towards the kitchen.

His steps echoed in the quiet house, and some of the many paintings on the walls seemed to get a little disturbed. A little, but not enough rouse them from their sleep.

In the kitchen Remus lit his wand with a soft _Lumos, _before he spoke to the house.

"I, Remus Lupin, resident of this house, wishes to decorate you completely, in order to make this Christmas a good one for our beloved Sirius Luck."

And somehow, the house seemed to agree with to his request, but Remus wasn't actually sure of it.

And so he started decorating the kitchen, carefully at first because he wanted to see how the house would react, but when he didn't end up with a chandelier in his head or a door in his face, he got a little braver.

He made everlasting snow drift around on the floor and gather in the corners, he covered all the windows in frost and he let small red and gold pixies appear on the edges of the shelves and the cupboards. He also put a warming spell on the floor, so that it would be warm, despite the snow.

Next he repeated his snow and frost process in the informal livingroom, but instead of pixies he made candles float around in mid-air and cast a warm glow over the whole room.

He also managed to conjure up a massive Christmas-tree in their grand hall, and some of the branches were hanging over the staircase. He had to climb the stairs up to the third floor to be able to place the crescent moon on the very top of the tree. Then, from his position up there, he made snow fall down and settle over the branches of the tree, and then small pixies and other Christmas ornaments rain down over the tree.

In various rooms he also got it to snow, but he made sure the snow disappeared before it hit the floor, this time he had his measurements right.

He wouldn't have had to decorate the whole house, since he knew Sirius wouldn't see it all. Still, he didn't like the feeling of an unfinished project, so he decided to complete the whole house. He even paid the attic a visit, where he had to dodge ghosts and cheer up a sad painting by lining his frame with fireflies.

His whole adventure through the house took him about three hours, and when he was finished he staggered back to bed where he collapsed and slept heavily until late in the morning.

When the sun was already flowing viciously in through the iced windows, Remus woke to the feel of someone's eyes on him.

"Good morning, Sirius," he grunted into the pillow, since he couldn't gather the energy to raise his head just yet.

There was a faint chuckle coming from the chair placed beside Sirius' side of the bed, it was the kind of chuckle that rang in the air long after it had escaped the lips of the person who chuckled. The kind of chuckle that could only belong to one man.

Suddenly, Remus was wide awake and gazing at an old man with a long, white beard and twinkling eyes behind half-moon spectacles. He was gazing at an old man who was no less than Albus Dumbledore.

"Professor Dumbledore?" Remus managed to croak out.

"Oh call me Albus, Remus dear. Neither of us are either student or Professor anymore, so I feel no need to use those titles. Also, I'm afraid your friend," Dumbledore took a little break, eyes sparkling bright at Remus "... your friend is creating a slight chaos down in the kitchen. You might want to consider joining me downstairs for a cup of tea before he manages to set the whole house on fire," and as if on cue, there was a loud rattle from a floor below them. Remus was quickly up on his feet and started rummaging around for his robe. Albus smiled one of his knowing smiles, while he casually observed his surroundings curiously.

When Remus had found his robe Albus Dumbledore rose to his feet and walked down the stairs alongside of Remus, while watching the snow fall beautifully down the center of the staircase.

"Is this your work? It's brilliant, I must say. Many of these spells are unknown to me," Albus said as he bent down to examine the railing covered in ice.

Remus cleared his throat, as if he was unused to the admiration in the old man's voice, it used to be the other way around, "Yes, Prof.. I mean Albus, it's my work. The reason you might not recognise them is because I've altered some of them and created a few new ones," Remus cleared his throat again.

Suddenly, in the middle of the landing between the Seventh and the Sixth floor, Albus stopped Remus with a hand on his shoulder. Remus turned around so that he was facing Albus, and Albus' grip on Remus' shoulder tightened as he said, "I'm proud of you, Remus. I truly am. You're such a great wizard, always far too bright for your age, and it really hurts me to know that the world never got to see you shine. That all they saw, was the beast living inside of you. You deserved more," there was a momentary shadow in the old man's eyes, but it passed quickly and he started walking again. Remus stood still for a few more seconds, as if to take in what the old man just said, then he continued walking too, still with a shocked expression on his wrinkled face.

They reached the kitchen without further proclamations of feelings, and found out that Dumbledore had indeed been very right about Sirius causing a mess in the kitchen.

There were pots and pans scattered around everywhere, and to enter the kitchen Remus had to step over a dead turkey lying on the floor.

"Sirius, what in Merlin's name are you doing? I thought you weren't the cooking type?" Remus asked, and there was undeniable amusement in his voice.

"Well, someone had to prepare food for our guest, since the other resident of this house seemed to be determined to enjoy his snooze," there was an edge to Sirius' tone which told Remus he wasn't all too pleased with this situation either, so Remus closed the gap between them and hugged Sirius tightly, "It's Christmas Eve, love, I don't think this is the time to be fighting," Remus said lovingly, and then he and Dumbledore helped Sirius clean up and prepare a nice meal.

Once they were seated at the table, Remus thought of something that had been nagging him in the back of his brain ever since he heard the chuckle when he woke up, "Sirius, how did Albus get in here?" he asked, trying not to sound too curious.

"Why, through the chimney of course, though how he got out of his house, I don't know," Sirius winked at Dumbledore.

"Yes, through the chimney, like that muggle Santa Claus. All I'd need now is a hat," Dumbledore winked back at Sirius.

Remus had a feeling the two of them had something going on, but he didn't feel like disrupting the Christmas spirit that had finally settled down in all of them.

"I must say, you did a marvelous job on the decorations," Sirius said, as he looked Remus in the eyes, his voice earnest but loving. Something told Remus that this was exactly what Sirius had needed, a nice Christmas. He hadn't had one since their time at Hogwarts.

"Thankyou dear, if you see any snow melting anywhere or anything that needs improvement, don't hestitate to tell me" Remus said, as he shot Sirius a thankful look.

After dinner was finished and cleaned up, they found themselves seated in the formal livingroom with a nice, warm fire roaring in the fireplace. Dumbledore had found a box of sherbet lemons in the inside pocket of his robe and was unsticking sherbet lemons from eachother and offering them to a completely stuffed Remus, who kindly refused.

Sirius was snoozing lightly on one of the bigger sofas with his hand hanging down the side of the sofa, so he certainly wasn't going to accept any sherbet lemons. That left all the sherbet lemons to Dumbledore, who didn't look as if he minded at all.

Dumbledore and Remus sat and talked for a couple of hours, and Sirius woke up somewhere after the second hour and joined their conversation, but soon found it too dull and conjured marshmallows which he roasted on the fire instead.

Remus looked at him disbelievingly, as if wondering how the man could get any more food down.

After a few more hours, Dumbledore announced that he'd better be off, since he had to celebrate Christmas Day at home with his family, and that it was quite a long walk over slippery rooftops, so he bid them goodbye and they followed him to the dining room and watched him climb up the chimney, strangely graceful for his old age.

After Dumbledore had disappeared, Sirius asked Remus to sit down on the sofa. Then he let his gaze drift over the various magical elements in the room and said in a stern manner, "I thought we agreed we wouldn't get any presents this year? You do realize what kind of position this puts me in, don't you? I have to figure something out until tomorrow.." but then he smiled and continued, "though I must thank you, this has been a very wonderful start to the holidays and.. and it feels like I've gotten back a bit of the magic I lost after Azkaban," and Remus understood what he wanted to say. That since James had died, no holiday had ever been the same again. Not without James apparating into their living quarters early in the morning, completely unannounced and shouting "Get up it's" and then the name of whatever holiday it happened to be that morning. Sirius would growl into the pillow and throw it at him, and Remus would try to hide under his cover for a while longer.

James always did this, even after he and Lily moved together, since he thought his friends were the second most important thing in the world. His wife and child came in first.

After having James come barging in every Christmas for many years, it had felt very strange for Remus that first Christmas after James and Lily had died and Sirius had ended up in Azkaban. He'd felt empty without James' shouting and Sirius' pillow-throwing.

This Christmas, he had Sirius, but no James. But it was better than nothing, Remus thought as he lay his head on his pillow that evening, and then he sighed happily as he felt Sirius' arm snake around his waist, and the warmth of Sirius' body close to his lulled him to sleep.

Yes, it was very much better than nothing.

Remus woke up fairly early on Christmas Day, but as usual Sirius wasn't in bed anymore. Remus lay awake in bed for a while, since he didn't think it was worth getting up this early, and that's when he caught the smell of burnt milk.

He estimated that Sirius couldn't have done any real damage with a bit of milk, so he stayed in bed. Soon he felt a tingle in the air, which indicated that a smell-clearing spell had been used.

Five minutes later though, Remus could again feel the smell of burnt milk, and started to wonder what exactly Sirius was trying to do in the kitchen.

He decided he didn't want to see Sirius as upset as yesterday, so he padded down to the kitchen and found Sirius in the process of making them breakfast, which he loaded into two baskets. The smell of burnt milk originated from a pot simmering at the fire, and Remus tilted the lid of the pot to find hot chocolate simmering in it.

He stared at Sirius, then sighed, and decided to do what he could about the hot chocolate. So he brewed it correctly and poured it into a jug that Sirius had placed near the fire.

While Remus had been correcting Sirius' errors, Sirius had finished breakfast and come over to Remus for a good-morning-kiss. He then recommended Remus to go and dress warmly, that they were going to eat breakfast outside.

"Oh, and Merry Christmas love," Sirius winked before he shooed Remus upstairs to get dressed.

Fifteen minutes later a slightly confused Remus found himself waiting at the chimney in the dining room, as instructed, and couldn't help but mutter "Breakfast on the roof? Has he gone completely nutters?" when he heard Sirius saying "I'm afraid so, now could you please take one of these baskets, I'm afraid they're rather heavy."

"What, so you think a weak werewolf should carry them instead, surely a healthy looking man like yourself can manage them both," Remus replied sarcastically and then took one of the baskets out of Sirius' hand, since it would have been impossible for Sirius to climb otherwise.

Remus found the climb quite unpleasant, since there was still a lot of soot left on the inside of the chimney, and he made a mental note to get that cleaned up in case Sirius wanted to drag him up here any more times. The sight that greeted him as he peeked his head out of the chimney made it all worth it though, because the sun was just rising over the rooftops on the opposite side of the street, and Remus thought he could see to the edge of the earth from here. Getting out of the chimney was a bit problematic though, because Remus' knees had started getting a bit worse and he was also afraid of falling down.

When Sirius noticed the man above him was hestitating about getting out, he shouted "There are safety barriers and an invisible platform on the roof. You won't fall, love, I promise," and then he saw Remus disappear out over the ledge of the chimney. He was quick to follow and as he got out he saw Remus standing in mid-air, laying out a blanket for them to sit on and grabbing another one to curl up in.

Sirius started taking the food out of the baskets and laying them out onto the blanket, and then sat down and patted the area next to him, indicating that he wanted Remus to sit down, and as he did, Sirius swooped the blanket around them. Remus curled up close to Sirius and hummed contently as he sipped on the hot chocolate Sirius had poured up for him in his mug.

Just as Remus was about to take a bite of a sandwich, he saw a pixie flying wobbly out of the chimney while giggling hysterically. "Sirius dear, did you leave the butterbeer out?" he asked amazed. Sirius took a look at the pixie and started to grin widely, "I might have, yes.. However, those bloody pixies must have gotten the cork out themselves."

Then both Sirius and Remus started to giggle, as another pixie appeared through the chimney, this one with a bad case of hiccups that sent a small cloud of soot out at them every now and then.

As they sat there and watched the sun rise, Remus couldn't help taking a look at the spells that held them up and safe, and he couldn't help but admire Sirius for his work. These were very complicated spells, and when he asked Sirius about them, he only got "Thought they'd be useful" as an answer. He didn't give it much of a thought after that, but simply enjoyed the food and the chilly air with his soulmate, and when it was time to go down again, he thanked him for what he had done. For giving him the perfect start to a perfect Christmas day.

And then he went down to the kitchen to put the final touches to their Christmas dinner, he felt like Sirius had done more than enough cooking lately.


	18. Chapter 18

**Please note that I do not own the world or the characters that I use in this fanfiction, they all belong to Joanne Rowling. I merely like to play around a bit with them.**

**I'm sorry, I really don't have an excuse for my absence. Will this make up for it?  
>It's a delightful cliffhanger, if I can say so myself.<strong>

Every once in a while, Remus would put whatever book he was reading to the side for a moment, and instead pick up a photo album. Sometimes he'd make Sirius look at the photographs with him, but more often than not he'd sit alone, curled up in his armchair in the library. This was one of those times, an unusually cold day in late February, when the snow was pouring down outside and Remus was wrapped in a blanket with a cup of tea at hand.

He didn't think there was anything specific with the photo album he was currently looking at, it was an album filled with pictures from their third year to their seventh year at Hogwarts. He had already looked through the album at least ten times earlier, but never had he noticed the two pages that seemeed to have stuck together, the pages that were now slightly opened. Remus hadn't seen them yet, so he was blissfully unaware of the horror that would await him on one of those pages.  
>With a slightly heavy heart, he was looking at a picture of the four Marauders together in Hogsmeade, each with a butterbeer mustache, arms flung around eachother's shoulders. Then he turned the old, brittle page and came face to face with a photograph of Sirius and James snogging. The fact that the photograph was moving didn't help Remus at all, and as he took a second, shocked glance at the photograph, he saw that they were definitely drunk and that the photograph was taken sometime around their sixth year at Hogwarts.<p>

The Sirius in the photograph broke away from the kiss for a moment, just to wink at the camera with gleaming eyes and a wicked smile, and Remus dropped the album as if it was poison.

Remus stood up from his chair, knocking over his cup of tea. For a few seconds, he seemed completely disoriented, so he closed his raging eyes, clenched his fists and tried to breathe calmly.

Still, he could feel the wolf clawing inside of him, whispering _"Let me out, let me out.. He's betrayed you.. He deserves it.. Let me out.."_ He growled back, telling it to back off. He wanted to deal with this as a proper human being, with human feelings. He picked up the album gingerly between two fingers and headed out of the library, the paintings on the walls still whispering in their frames about what might have been the cause of his behaviour.

Remus caught up Sirius' latest trail of scent easily, and it was only seconds before he burst into the living room where Sirius was dozing lazily on the sofa, reading an old newspaper.

Sirius didn't notice Remus' livid state to begin with, so he just said "Oh, there you are. I'm so terribly bored, and I think I've read this newspaper a dozen times since I got here already," then he glanced at Remus' rigid posture and his face grew pale.

"You know, if you're so terribly bored, I have something you can read. Or rather, look through. It's a photo album from the library. This," he threw the photo album onto the small table, "photo album, to be exact. Look at page 16." His nostrils flared a bit as he spoke.

Sirius looked confused, he even shook his head slightly, but he did as he was told. The pages had stuck together again, so he had to fight a little to be able to open the page, but when he did, his eyes instantly fell on the picture Remus was so angry about. His mouth fell open and he went even paler than before.

"I.. I'm sorry! We were drunk, it was after one of your full moon nights when you were still in the hospital wing.. We were just fooling around, I didn't know what I was doing! I-It.. It didn't mean anything, I swear!" Sirius was trying to soften Remus up with his puppydog eyes, but it didn't work this time. He had betrayed Remus too badly to be able to mend it with those eyes.

Remus rubbed his temples, as if to clear his thoughts, and then he locked his eyes into Sirius' pleading ones. "Sirius, this was clearly after we became.. engaged with eachother. This means that you betrayed me. You betrayed me! I would never have dreamt of doing that, even while you were in Azkaban, because you're the love of my life."

"But I.." Sirius cut in pleadingly, but Remus wouldn't have it.

"No, no but's, being drunk is not an excuse! _Damn you Sirius! _You meant everything to me, you still do! You're the one person who's always been safe to me, I've always known I could trust you. But this.. You do realize how this recent discovery affects that, don't you? My feeling of safety, my trust in you is _shattered!_" Remus was still clenching his fists, trying hard not to let the wolf take over. There was a small, silvery tear rolling down his cheek too.

"And with _James _of all people! You should have told me.."

And that was all Remus could manage, before he rushed up to their bedroom to gather his things. It wasn't much, but he wanted the few books he had chosen from the library, the ones he had marked as special. His wand. Some parchment and a quill. And a photograph from another photo album.

It wasn't more than he could carry, so he set off in search of a guest bedroom as far away from Sirius' bedroom as possible, the pain weighing down his steps, and the tears blurring his vision. Several times he almost walked through a ghost or stumbled down a staircase.

Left in the livingroom was Sirius. He was sitting with his legs spread and his elbows resting on his legs, his head resting in his hand, staring down onto the dark wooden floor. His inner dog was battling feelings of extreme guilt, extreme sorrow, extreme grief and extreme pain.

He regretted that evening more than he had ever regretted anything in his whole life, more than he ever regretted going after Pettigrew so he ended up in prison.

He fumbled with the photograph until he finally got it out of the album, and held it in his hands, tears landing on it in regular intervals. The little James and the little Sirius in the picture just kept snogging, even though the tears made their outlines a bit blurry.

After Sirius had no more tears left to cry, he just sat on the sofa for the rest of the evening, staring into the dying fire, and he couldn't help but think that the fire was his and Remus' relationship. At some point, he threw the photograph into the fire and watched it burn slowly, until it was just a crumpled, grey mess.

The only problem was, a fire could be lit again, but Sirius couldn't afford spending his time relighting their relationship, now that he finally had Remus again. He knew better than to try to apologize to Remus now though, he knew he'd have to wait a few days, maybe even weeks.

After the sorrow disappeared, anger took it's place, and Sirius ventured down into the cellar to smash things. He cursed his father for keeping him locked down there, he cursed Voldemort for ever killing James and Lily, he cursed himself for kissing James that evening. Most of all, he cursed Remus for being so bloody wonderful, beautiful, intelligent and amazing. As the wooden boxes shattered under his punches, and his voice went hoarse from screaming, a silvery ghost of his ancestor silently hovered through the room. The ghost was soon followed by another one, a young lady with beautiful, curly hair. She ventured closer to Sirius, and placed her icingly cold hand on Sirius', making him jump.

"Don't. Don't hurt yourself. He's not worth it," she said in a bright, ringing voice.

"News travel fast in the House of Black," Sirius thought. He then snarled and said, "He's worth it, allright. He's worth this, this and so much more. What he's not worth though, is a lousy excuse for a boyfriend."

More ghosts gathered in the cellar, as Sirius was again sobbing on the floor. They gathered around him in a circle, and began dancing, around and around. They sang a quiet song, a song of lost love, and Sirius could feel the air going cold. Somehow, it was a relief, and Sirius ended up falling asleep on the cold stone floor, in the middle of the eerie dance of the ghosts.

As Sirius spent his night in the cellar, Remus spent his on a dusty bed in a bedroom on the Fifth floor. He didn't know who the room had belonged to, and he didn't care very much either. The tears wouldn't stop pouring, and the wolf wouldn't stop howling. He felt like someone had quite literally stabbed him in the heart.

He also couldn't stop looking at that one picture, the picture of Sirius and him on their graduation day. He looked at their happy, smiling faces, and the way Sirius hugged him just a bit too closely for a friend. But nobody really noticed that, unless they were looking for it.

He could also see James and Peter in the distance, running around on the green grass of the Hogwarts grounds, and he felt another surge of pain in his chest.

He'd do anything to just disappear from the house, to be with James instead. Then he changed his mind, because James had been kissing Sirius back.

Remus curled up on the bed yet again, and promised himself he'd send Dumbledore a letter in the morning.

And so he did.

_20 February 1999_

_Dear Dumbledore,_

_Because of some recent events, I'm wondering if it would be possible to leave this place right now. To leave, and never return. To die properly._

_Would that be possible? I need to know._

_Sincerely, Remus._

He creeped through the house, constantly alert so that he'd catch Sirius' scent if he was anywhere near, and in that case avoid any contact with Sirius.

He made his way through the hidden passageway in Sirius' old bedroom to the old, unused kitchen, from which he then sneaked to the courtyard.

In the courtyard, he found Jamesie sitting on a stick. Oblivious to the drama that had been going on between his masters, Jamesie hooted and looked very pleased when he saw Remus appear. As Remus tied the letter to his leg (which he extended gladly and gracefully), the owl tried to cuddle against Remus' arm.

He got very offended when Remus just threw him into the air instead of scratching him, but of course, he didn't know the pain the ageing werewolf was going through.

After all that was over, Remus sneaked back up into his bed, where he stayed for the next few days, only leaving at odd hours of the day to get some food or go to the bathroom.

Sirius wasn't much better off, he was constantly roaming the corridors in the Grimmauld Place, his mind trapped in a haze of firewhisky.

Both men were completely, utterly heartbroken.


	19. Chapter 19

**Please note that the world and the characters I'm using in this fanfic belong to Rowling.**

**I know this fanfic has been a bit slow lately, but this is the beginning of the end. After this, there's only one more chapter to go. Some reviews would really inspire me to finish that chapter faster though. *hint hint***

There were 11 floors in Grimmauld Place 12, but suddenly the enormous old house seemed way too small for it's two inhabitants, who kept bumping into eachother when they never wanted to see eachother again. Or at least one of them didn't want to see the other.

Remus had gotten a rather mysterious letter from Dumbledore, saying that he couldn't leave this place before it was his turn. This confused him to no end. He also didn't feel like spending time in the library anymore, because of all the memories that came crushing down on him every time he opened that door, so he bid Frederick Blacks' painting adieu, and moved half of the library down to his bedroom on the Fifth Floor with one wave of his wand. It was only when he tried to open the door to his bedroom that he realized his mistake. He could only open it just barely enough for his thin frame to slide inside, because the whole room was completely filled with stacks of books. Remus sighed.

To distract himself, and to make sure nothing went wrong again, he started picking up books from the nearest stacks, and stuffed them onto the shelves, into the closet, under the bed, onto the nightstand, into the bathroom and onto the dresser. When he had filled every possible space, a stack of books still remained, so he levitated it into a corner and then flopped down onto the bed. He wiped off a bead of sweat from his forehead, being cooped up in a house for a year, even a house of this size, had taken it's toll on Remus' body, which was now weaker than ever.

A few floors up, Sirius' body wasn't looking very well either, now that he didn't have Remus to cook for him. He was lying on the big bed he used to share with Remus, staring up into the ceiling. His stomach growled, and he ignored it, as usual. He had lost his appetite anyway.

He cursed himself each and every single day for not burning that photograph earlier, and he cursed himself even more for ever kissing James, even if it was just for fun.

One day, Sirius decided he'd finally had enough, and that he needed to get Remus back, or die trying. So he started plotting and planning. It took him quite precisely a week to plan his mission, and countless trips to the library. A few annoyed sighs too, when the book he was looking for was gone. 

He knew Remus' favourite book was _Hogwarts: A History_, because of how much that castle had meant to him, so the first part of his plan involved that book. 

Remus was getting ready to go to bed that night, to curl up with Hogwarts: A History safely in his lap, to re-read it for the thousandth time. To remember the few happy times in that castle that didn't involve Sirius. But before he could do that, he'd have to get some food from the kitchen, the werewolf was starting to wear him down, so he used the hidden passageway from Sirius' old bedroom again. He left the book open on the bed, spine facing downwards so it wouldn't crack, then he peered out into the hallway to make sure Sirius wasn't anywhere around. Since he couldn't see a living, or dead, soul, he decided it was safe to leave the room. 

He actually thought hiding and running away from Sirius was a bit childish, but he couldn't help it. 

What Remus didn't know, was that Sirius was watching him. There was a passage in the wall of the Fifth Floor corridor, with small peep-holes evenly distributed down the corridor. The holes weren't visible from the corridor, and it was only by luck that Sirius had stumbled upon the passage when he was exploring the house as a child. 

Sirius had been standing there for three hours already, ready to set his plan into action once Remus was gone. He knew he wouldn't have a lot of time, so once he saw Remus disappear into his old bedroom, he dashed down the stairs that were hidden behind a tapestry on the Fourth Floor, then he rushed to the Grand Staircase, where he slowed down so his steps wouldn't be heard on the marble, and then he ran into Remus' bedroom on the Fifth Floor, thankful for the thick rug that silenced his steps. 

When he got into the room, he was ready to start looking among the stacks of books, horrified by the sheer amount of books that Remus had managed to transport down from the library, but it came as an enormous relief when he saw the book lying neatly on the bed. He silently thanked Remus for that, then he grabbed the book and placed a small piece of parchment on the bed in it's place. He then sneaked away as quickly as possible, and went to hide the book. 

When Remus returned, he could immediately smell Sirius' scent in his room, then he noticed that his book was gone, and lastly he noticed the piece of parchment. Quite angrily he walked up to his bed and picked up the parchment, who did Sirius think he was, stealing his most precious book like that? 

_This game has it's start, where dwelled the brave at heart._

Remus read the line several times, thinking, his brows furrowed. Then he realized what it meant, and when he did, he couldn't believe how self-righteous Sirius was being. He didn't want to play any stupid games with Sirius, so he decided to just follow the trail of his scent to find out where he had hidden the book, but unfortunately, that idea got smashed into pieces when Remus reached the Grand Staircase. Sirius' scent was everywhere on that staircase, and Remus couldn't determine which way he'd gone.

He sighed, and tried to accept the fact that he'd have to play this game, whether he wanted to or not.

Remus headed back into the corridor, all the way to Sirius' old bedroom, where he found another piece of parchment, just as he'd expected.

_To someplace you hold dear, your nose you now should steer._

Remus sighed again. If Sirius was insisting on playing a game with him, why didn't he at least make it interesting? The answer to this riddle was far too simple. He made his way up to the library, where he found a piece of parchment hovering in mid-air. He tried to grab it, but it flew out of his reach, that was when he noticed the Firebolt hovering in a corner.

Looking annoyed, he grabbed the Firebolt. With great difficulty, he managed to swing his leg over it, and then he kicked off from the floor carefully, so he wouldn't shoot straight up into the ceiling. The parchment was now fluttering like it had wings, and Remus steered the broom towards it.

Since Remus wasn't very good as a Seeker, it took him about ten minutes to catch it. James Potter would have caught it in five seconds.

_This place is haunted by a ghost, the ghost of burnt toast.  
><em>

Remus nearly laughed at how childish Sirius' rhymes were, but then he remembered he was supposed to be angry with Sirius. So he instead focused on getting down to the kitchen as fast as possible, it was getting late and he really wanted his book back.

Remus was happy to find out that there wasn't some strange task set out for him this time, that the parchment was just lying on the kitchen table. He picked it up and had to study it for a few seconds before he could understand the messy handwriting. Sirius had apparently been in a hurry while he was writing.

_This owl annoyed me to no end, when he to my letters wouldn't tend._

Since there only lived one owl at Grimmauld Place 12, Remus knew it had to be Paddy, so he walked the short distance to the courtyard, thinking about why Sirius was bothering with all of this anyway.

It didn't take Remus long to find Paddy under his usual bush, and the owl seemed very happy to see him. He hooted affectionately, and gladly extended his leg so that Remus could untie the small scroll of parchment.

_Here you once heard a crash, many bricks did I smash._

The handwriting was just as unreadable on this one, but Remus soon found himself standing in the Main Dining Room on the Second Floor, looking at a piece of slightly crumpled parchment lying on the dining table.

_Climb to the top and look, there you might find your precious book._

Remus winced. There was no doubt about what he was supposed to do, and his weakened muscles weren't looking forward to it. But at this stage, he was actually a bit curious, so he wouldn't have had a choice anyway. At least Sirius had bothered to clean the chimney and to fix the broken steps on the Fourth and the Sixth floor.

Remus suspiciously peered over the top of the chimney after the long climb. What he saw almost took his breath away. A big, bright blue fire was flaming in the air next to the chimney, and Sirius had three blankets and a picnic basket laid out on the invisible platform he'd once again cronjured. His face looked apologetic as he held out the book so that Remus could take it and climb back down if he wanted to.

"I'm sorry Remus, I'm so very sorry. I should never have kissed him.. And I shouldn't have stolen your book, but you've been running away from me every time I've gotten anywhere near you, and I can't take this anymore.. we haven't got much time left, and I don't want to spend that time avoiding you. Will you please accept my apology?" he said, his voice shaking slightly. He fidgeted with the collar of his shirt nervously.

Remus looked at him with sad eyes, he didn't say anything, but he didn't climb back down either. He simply looked at Sirius.

"Please, Remus, I'm begging you," Sirius dropped the book and fell down onto his knees.

The Sirius Remus knew at school would never have done such a thing, at least not seriously. As a joke, maybe, but he would have been far too proud for it.

"Help me out of this chimney, will you?" Remus asked Sirius, whose face lit up, and he rose upp from his knees and pulled Remus out of the chimney, then proceeded to hug him closely.

Remus laughed a soft laugh as they were lying under a blanket on the roof later that night, watching the stars, trying to spot a shooting star. "This reminds me of that night up at the Astronomy Tower. It seems like lightyears away now," Remus whispered.

Sirius held him closely in his lap and leaned his chin on Remus' head. "I agree, I can't believe how much we've been through since then, and in that moment, I could never have imagined that we'd ever have to endure such things."

Remus smiled, "The world certainly was a much happier place at the time. But Sirius, earlier this night, you told me that we don't have much time left.. " Remus' smile died out.

"Yes?" Sirius asked, Remus could notice Sirius was trying to keep his voice casual.

"What do you mean by that? I thought we'd live here forever..."

"I'd like that, Moony, but unfortunately Death doesn't work that way," Sirius ruffled Remus' hair affectionately.

"But what do you mean? What will happen to us?" Remus frowned.

"You'll see," Sirius voice wavered, and he couldn't hide the sadness in his voice anymore.


End file.
